Logo
BusinessBusiness

Wall Street suffered its worst Thanksgiving week since 1932 — and faces an even rougher week ahead amid new data on the shaky economy.

Stocks weakened across the board yesterday in a shortened day of trading following Thursday’s recess for the holiday.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index skidded for the seventh straight session, leaving the index down 4.7 percent for the week and off 7.9 percent for the year, to 1,157.67.

The Nasdaq slid 18.57 to 2,441.51, and is down 8.0 percent for the year. The Dow Jones industrial average closed yesterday at 11,231.78, and is off 3.0 percent year-to-date.

Analysts said next week’s string of important monthly economic data holds little promise for Wall Street investors to fend off more shock waves from Europe’s crisis.

Investors in Europe spooked most other markets at the week’s close yesterday after Italy got hit with skyrocketing interest of 7.8 percent in order to sell its bonds. Belgium’s credit rating was downgraded by Standard & Poor’s a day after Hungary and Portugal got downgraded by other ratings firms.

Marts had started out positive yesterday as European leaders voiced a plan to deal with the debt issues facing Italy. However, remarks by Greek leaders about possible higher hurdles drove marts into negative territory.

Meanwhile, a total of 40 government and private reports are due on US economic barometers ranging from sales of new homes and cars to factory output. Economists predict outcomes that are mostly flat, or, at best, barely anemic.

One optimistic prediction by economists was the ADP report on payroll growth, which is expected to report Wednesday that US companies added 130,000 new jobs in November, a improvement over the 110,000 new jobs in October.

“It would be a little bit refreshing to focus on the US data for a change,” said portfolio chief Brian Lazorishak at Chase Investment Counsel.

Comments
anonymous profile image
Powered by RoundtableBuilt on infrastructure designed for real-time media. Learn more at RTB.io.© Roundtable 2026. By using this site you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy