每日市场点评 --- August 12, 2008

The market tumbled today amid several downgrades in the influential financial sector. The Dow lost almost 140 points or 1.2% while the S&P 500 posted a similar loss. The Nasdaq continued its recent strength and only retreated 0.4% after gaining for five straight sessions. The news of the trade balance for June should give Q2 GDP another boost when it is revised later this month. Economists were looking for the deficit to widen to $61.9 billion from $59.2 in May. Instead, it shrank to $56.8 billion. Exports jumped 4% to $164.4 billion and that was the biggest single month increase in more than four years. Apparently, the weakness in the dollar did provide a much needed hand to the US economy. Excluding the effects of price changes, the trade deficit narrowed to $39.1 billion, the lowest since December 2001 from $43.5 billion in May.

Basic materials were the only major sector that managed to post a gain for the session. However, the gain was quite limited. On the losers’ list, we had names like financial and transportation. As for the former, the sector surpassed $500 billion mark today in terms of sub-prime related write-downs with this morning’s UBS earnings results ( a table listing the breakdowns of the $500 billion write-downs is attached at the end). As we pointed out yesterday, railways continued to tumble in today’s trading while airlines reacted favourably to falling crude price. The weakness in railways could well be related to broad weakness in commodities. The CRB commodity index continued to slide and closed at 384. The US dollar was mixed against most major currencies. Treasuries rallied as typical flight to quality. The VIX index jumped 1 point to 21.17. The market breath was negative on NYSE and neutral on Nasdaq with moderate volume.



Firm Writedown & Loss Capital Raised

Citigroup 55.1 49.1

Merrill Lynch 51.8 29.9

UBS 44.2 28.3

HSBC 27.4 3.9

Wachovia 22.5 11

Bank of America 21.2 20.7

IKB Deutsche 15.3 12.6

Royal Bank of Scotland 14.9 24.3

Washington Mutual 14.8 12.1

Morgan Stanley 14.4 5.6

JPMorgan Chase 14.3 7.9

Deutsche Bank 10.8 3.2

Credit Suisse 10.5 2.7

Wells Fargo 10 4.1

Barclays 9.1 18.6

Lehman Brothers 8.2 13.9

Credit Agricole 8 8.8

Fortis 7.4 7.2

HBOS 7.1 7.6

Societe Generale 6.8 9.8

Bayerische Landesbank 6.4 -

Canadian Imperial (CIBC) 6.3 2.8

Mizuho Financial Group 5.9 -

ING Groep 5.8 4.8

National City 5.4 8.9

Lloyds TSB 5 4.9

IndyMac 4.9 -

WestLB 4.7 7.5

Dresdner 4.1 -

BNP Paribas 4 -

LB Baden-Wuerttemberg 3.8 -

Goldman Sachs 3.8 0.6

E*Trade 3.6 2.4

Nomura Holdings 3.3 1.1

Natixis 3.3 6.7

Bear Stearns 3.2 -

HSH Nordbank 2.8 1.9

Landesbank Sachsen 2.6 -

UniCredit 2.6 -

Commerzbank 2.4 -

ABN Amro 2.3 -

DZ Bank 2 -

Bank of China 2 -

Fifth Third 1.9 2.6

Rabobank 1.7 -

Bank Hapoalim 1.7 2.4

Mitsubishi UFJ 1.6 1.5

Royal Bank of Canada 1.5 -

Marshall & Ilsley 1.4 -

Alliance & Leicester 1.4 -

U.S. Bancorp 1.3 -

Dexia 1.2 -

Caisse d\'Epargne 1.2 -

Keycorp 1.2 1.7

Sovereign Bancorp 1 1.9

Hypo Real Estate 1 -

Gulf International 1 1

Sumitomo Mitsui 0.9 4.9

Sumitomo Trust 0.7 1

DBS Group 0.2 1.1

Other European banks* 7.2 2.3

Other Asian banks* 4.6 7.8

Other U.S. banks* 2.9 1.9

Other Canadian banks* 1.8 -
____ ____

TOTAL** 501.1 352.9

Source: Bloomberg