World Market Overview Oct 27

Bank capital worries that weighed on Bank of America and a drop in oil prices that hurt Alcoa, Chevron and other energy and materials firms sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 100 points on Monday.

After starting out surging on Monday, stock turned around in the late morning and closed well to the downside.

The Dow ended off 104.22 points, or 1.05%, to 9867.96, marking its first set of back-to-back triple-digit losses since June 16.

Within the index, Bank of America led the decliners on concerns U.S. regulators are pushing the banking giant to raise more capital.

BofA closed down 82 cents, or 5.1%, to 15.40, while other financials, such as JPMorgan Chase, off 1.41, or 3.1%, to 43.82, also closed lower.

The Standard & Poor's 500 closed down 12.65, or 1.17%, to 1066.95, including a drop of 1.5% for energy firms and 2.5% for materials.

Dow components Alcoa and Chevron were particularly weak, closing down 45 cents, or 3.3%, to 13.28, and 1.23, or 1.6%, to 75.45, respectively. Setting off their declines was a 2.3% drop for oil prices and a decrease in prices of gold, silver and copper on the session.

For stock investors, Monday marked a lack of concrete news to drive the market ahead of a wave of earnings and economic reports due out in the coming days.

While earnings reports have so far provided lift to the market, not every company is shattering expectations.

Among other indexes, the Nasdaq Composite closed down 12.62, or 0.59%, to 2141.85. The tech-heavy index has fallen in two straight sessions and four of the last five.

European Market

Stocks in Europe closed lower in a topsy-turvy session on Monday, with the financial sector reeling after ING revealed the steep price they will pay after getting aid from the Dutch government.

With rises of as much as 0.6% and losses of as much as 1.4%, the pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index finished 1.3% lower to 241.84.

The losses were led by the financial sector as ING  shares tumbled 18% in Amsterdam after it announced a sweeping plan to break itself apart as well as to repay some of the state aid that Holland has provided.

ING announced an EUR7.5 billion rights issue, a plan to repay EUR5 billion of state aid as well as the planned sale of its insurance unit.

Other banks under pressure in Europe included Lloyds, down 7.2%, and Royal Bank of Scotland, down 5.7%.

Both have received support from the U.K. government during the financial crisis. On a regional level, the U.K. FTSE 100 index dropped 1% to 5,191.74, the German DAX index skidded 1.7% to 5,642.16, and the French CAC-40 indexfell 1.7% to 3,744.45.

Asian Market

Japan's Nikkei 225 Average climbed 0.8% to 10362.62, South Korea's Kospi rose 1% and the Shanghai Composite Index inched up 0.1%. Taiwan's Taiex ended up 0.3% and the Philippines' main index advanced 0.3%, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 slid 0.6%. Singapore's Straits Times Index ended flat and India's Sensex fell 0.4%.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were recently up 18 points in screen trade. Sentiment in Seoul was aided by data showing that third-quarter gross domestic product grew at its fastest quarterly pace in more than seven years, adding to hopes the recovery in Asia's fourth-largest economy would be sustainable.

GDP rose a seasonally adjusted 2.9% from the second quarter, faster than the 2.1% quarter-to-quarter rise expected by economists.

Technology and automotive stocks led the way in Seoul. Felix shares climbed 4% on heavy trading volumes in a downbeat Sydney market after the Australian government Friday granted conditional approval for a A$3.54-billion takeover by Yanzhou Coal, giving a green light to the largest Chinese takeover of an Australian company.

Commodities Update

Copper prices closed lower on Monday, coming under pressure from a late rally in the U.S. dollar that helped drag the metal away from 13-month highs, despite earlier support from data showing hefty imports of the metal into China.

Copper for December delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange's COMEX division dipped 2.35 cents to end at $3.0110 a lb, after dealing between $2.9875 and $3.0690, its highest level since late September 2008.

Zinc, which jumped over 10 percent last week, saw continued support from an outage at Chinese-owned Century zinc mine in Australia after the failure of a pipeline carrying concentrate from the mine to port.

The operation also reported a 9 percent fall in output in the September quarter due to a change in the mine plan.

Aluminum closed at $1,998 from $1,972. The metal used in transport and packaging touched a day's high of $2,028, its highest since late August.

Battery material was untraded in LME rings but was last bid at $2,310 from $2,360, while was at $15,255 from $15,145. Nickel closed at $18,650 from $18,950.

Commodities update

Crude-oil futures dropped below $80 per barrel Monday, reversing direction as the U.S. dollar gained strength and U.S. equity markets lost ground.

Light, sweet crude for December delivery recently traded $1.18 cents, or 1.5%, lower at $79.33 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange traded $1.07 lower at $77.85 a barrel. Nymex crude had risen earlier Monday, reaching a high of $81.58, or 1.3% above Friday's close, but headed lower as the U.S. dollar gained strength and equity markets headed lower.

The U.S. dollar strengthened through the morning, trading recently at $1.4971 to the euro, from $1.5064 earlier in the day. The S&P 500 Index turned negative, dropping five points, or 0.4%, to 1,075.