| Australian Stocks Decline, Led By Banking Scrips
(RTTNews) - Wednesday, Sydney stocks were declining, tracking a weak Wall Street lead. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index was losing 21.40 points or 0.33% to 6,404.00, while the All Ordinaries Index was down 17.90 points or 0.28% to 6,472.30. The Australian dollar opened stronger against its U.S. counterpart on Wednesday. At 7 a.m. AEDT, the local currency was trading at USD0.8858-0.8863, up from Tuesday's close of USD0.8844-0.8847. Banking stocks led the decline as the U.S. credit market turmoil continued to take its toll, while resources firms advanced on higher gold and oil prices. Energy firms gained after oil prices jumped more than US$3 on Tuesday, passing US$98 a barrel on tight supply worries. In the mining space, Rio Tinto edged down 0.17%, Alumina eased 0.45%, Iluka Resources slid 2.61% and Zinifex edged down 0.14%, while BHP Billiton rose 1.64%.
Anatomy of a panic
Shortly past 8 a.m. on an already sweltering August Monday, a small team of financiers hurried down a flight of stairs in one of Montreal's most historic office buildings to watch a modern disaster unfold. The men, senior executives with National Bank Financial, were hurrying to a cavernous room on the main floor of the beaux-arts Sun Life building where more than 100 traders buy and sell billions of dollars of stocks, currencies and debt instruments every day. Leading the group was Ricardo Pascoe, a wiry, soft-spoken derivatives specialist who was named co-chief executive officer of National Bank of Canada's securities arm a year earlier. At his side was his top legal executive, Brian Davis. Mr. Pascoe whisked the group past long lines of noisy trading desks to a normally quiet corner where a half dozen men and women were feverishly working the phones.
Chinese Urban Fixed-Asset Investment Continues To Surge
(RTTNews) - The rampant rise in capital spending by Chinese companies continue to give worries to the government, as the impacts of its restrictive measures failed to materialize, official data indicated Friday. According to a report by the National Bureau of Statistics, China's urban fixed-asset investment rose 26.9% to 8.895 trillion yuan in the first ten months from a year earlier. This compared to a 26.8% increase in the same period last year. The urban investment in factories, real estate and other construction projects logged 26.4% growth in nine months through September. Investment in primary industry rose 39.9% to 107 billion yuan, while secondary industry reported a 29.6% increase at 3.9 trillion yuan. Tertiary industry's spending rose 24.7% to 4.9 trillion yuan during the period.
Ailing dollar falls to historic low against euro
A dollar printing plate at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington. The ailing US dollar tumbled to a historic low against the euro Tuesday as concerns mounted about US economic growth after the Federal Reserve trimmed back its growth projections, traders said. .
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