5:00PM New York, 11:00PM Frankfurt, 9:00AM Sydney

U.S. stocks fell for the fourth day in a row led by a weakness in tech, energy, resource, and financial stocks. A sharp drop in Microsoft, Google, Research in Motion, SanDisk, and Nvidia led the Nadaq down more than 1% for the second day in a row.

E*Trade plunged 59% on the worries that the bank and online brokerage service may declare a loss and a broker warning that it may not have enough reserve to cover widening losses in its sub-prime lending business.

Blackstone Group reported a net loss of $113 million compared to profit of $372 million from a year ago. Blackstone declined more than 8%.

The Bank of China raised capital requirements by 0.5% to 13.5% for its commercial banks to stem rising liquidity in the stock markets and sharply rising real estate prices. The Reserve Bank of Australia said that inflation is likely to run higher than its target estimate between 2% and 3%.

The dollar fell to 11-year low against yen but rebounded against euro. Oil recovered from its worst level and gold and copper declined. With the rising yen against dollars metals, oil, and agricultural commodities prices have come under pressure. Gold lost 3.5%, oil lost 2%, silver lost 5%, and copper dropped 1.2%. Copper fell on the Chinese Customs reported that October imports declined 6% to 204,242 metric tons.

Global Markets Indexes

Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 39.34 or 0.30% to a close of 13,003.40, S&P 500 dropped 1.43% or 15.17 to 1,438.53, and Nasdaq Composite Index declined 42.45 or 1.62% to a close of 2,585.49. In Toronto TSX Composite lost 271.46 or 1.96% to close at 13,598.36.

Of the 30 stocks in Dow Jones Industrial Average, 14 closed higher, 16 closed lower, and none were unchanged.

Alcoa led the decliners in the index with a fall of 3.3% followed by declines in Exxon Mobil of 2.7%, in Disney of 2.2%, in Hewlett Packard of 1.8%. Johnson & Johnson led the gainers in the index with a rise of 1.8% followed by increases in Home Depot of 1.5%, in Citigroup of 1.4%, in IBM of 1.1%, and Wal-Mart of 1%.

Of the stocks in S&P 500, 191 closed higher, 302 fell, and 7 were unchanged. Eighty five stocks fell more than 3% and thirteen stocks rose more than 3%.

Southwest Air led the gainers in the index with a rise of 8.5% followed by increases in Tenet Healthcare of 7.1%, in Family Dollar of 4.4%, in Whirlpool of 4.3%, in Mattel of 4.2%. E*Trade Financial led the decliners with a plunge of 59% followed by losses in NVidia of 10%, in National Oilwell of 9.9%, in Console Energy of 9.8%, in Free Port McMoran of 9.5%, in Allegheny Technology of 8.6%, in Fluor Corp of 8.3%, in Peabody Energy of 8.1%, in Monsanto of 7.75%.

In London FTSE 100 Index closed up 33.00 or 0.52% to 6,337.90, in Paris CAC 40 Index increased 11.38 or 0.21% to close at 5,535.56, and in Frankfurt DAX index fell 5.56 or 0.07% to close at 7,806.84. In Zurich trading SMI added 24.89 or 0.30% to close at 8,442.04.

In Tokyo Nikkei 225 Index retreated 386.33 or 2.48% to close at 15,197.09, in Hong Kong Hang Seng index closed down 1,117.68 or 3.88% to 27,665.73, in Australia ASX 200 closed down 90.40 or 1.38% to close 6,455.30. India closed down 0.9% or 170.33 to 18,737.27.

In South Korea Kospi Index decreased 67.05 or 3.37% to close at 1,923.42, Thailand closed down 12.71 or 1.45% to 861.93, and Indonesia edged lower 35.76 or 1.32% to 2,671.90.

Philippines declined 85.29 or 2.31% to 3,618.37. Singapore declined 88.55 or 2.46% to 3,511.12 and Malaysia dropped 19.90 or 1.42% to 1,382.35.

In Latin Markets Brazil led the decliners with a fall in Bovespa of 4.34% followed by decreases in Bolsa Index in Mexico of 3.34%, in Peru and Argentina of 1.80%. Chile Stock Market Select lost 1.25% and Colombia IGBC Index lost 0.08%.

Bond Yields were unchanged on 10-year U.S. bonds to 4.21% and 30-year bonds to 4.60%.

Commodities, Metals, and Currencies

Crude oil fell $1.70 to close at $94.62 per barrel for a front month contract, up 43.50% for the year, natural gas increased 6 cents to $7.96 per mBtu, and gasoline futures decreased 3.95 cents to close at 241.65 cents per gallon.

Gold edged lower $27.00 in New York trading to close at $807.70 per ounce, silver closed down 78 cents to $14.76 per ounce, and copper for front month delivery lost 3.65 cents to $310.90 per pound and in London trading closed down $185 to $7,004.50

Dollar edged higher against euro to $1.4536 and lower to 109.79 yen.