Stocks plunge in US
Associated Press
NEW YORK
After three days of bad news about Europe’s debt crisis sent Asian and European markets down Monday, it was Wall Street’s turn.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell as many as 180 points before paring back some of its losses. Another steep downgrade of Greece’s credit rating, a warning on Italy’s debt and a major defeat of Spain’s ruling party caused new worries about Europe’s debt crisis.
That sent the euro lower against the dollar. A stronger dollar makes it more expensive for other countries to buy U.S. exports, hurting U.S. companies that sell goods abroad.
The dollar rose 0.6 percent against an index of global currencies Monday.
The bad news began late Friday, when the Fitch ratings agency downgraded Greece’s debt further into junk status. That gave investors more reason to fear that the country will need more help managing its debts beyond the emergency loan package it received last year.
Then Standard & Poor’s said Saturday that Italy was in danger of having its debt rating lowered if it could not reduce its borrowing and improve economic growth. The next day, Spain’s ruling Socialist party was roundly defeated in local elections, potentially jeopardizing the country’s deficit-cutting program.