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Dow tanks on Greek default fears, Tyco, Netflix, Goodrich, UBS in focus

Published: 20:08 19 Sep 2011 BST

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Equity markets in the US were sharply lower Monday afternoon amid concern that Greece may fail to qualify for further financial aid.

As at 2.15 pm EDT, the Dow was down 193.33 points, or 1.68%, at 11,315.76, the S&P 500 fell 18.99 points or 1.56% at 1,197.02 and the NASDAQ dropped 24.70 points or 0.94% at 2,597.61.

President Barack Obama Monday unveiled a $3.6 trillion deficit reduction plan that would allow the country to begin reducing its debt load by 2017. Under the White House plan, national debt would fall to 73% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012. If Congress took no action to cut spending, the debt would hit 90.7% of GDP, the White House said.

In corporate news, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) lost its pre-market gains as co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings wrote a blog posting that apologized for the way the recent changes in charges were communicated and renamed the company's DVD-by-mail service Qwikster. Shares were down 3%.

Industrial product company Tyco International (NYSE:TYC) rose 1.3% as the company said it will separate into three independent, publicly traded companies. The three companies created from the split will be the ADT North America residential security business, alongside a flow control company and a commercial fire and security business.

Shares of aeronautical equipment and services company Goodrich (NYSE:GR) popped 17% amid speculation that the company would be taken over by military services giant United Technologies (NYSE:UTX).

Shares of Lennar (NYSE:LEN) spiked 5% after the homebuilder said that new orders increased during the quarter for the first time in more than five years, a good sign for future demand.

Swiss bank UBS (NYSE:UBS) shares dropped 4% as it raised the amount lost on rogue trades linked to the arrest of a 31-year old bank employee in London last week to $2.3 billion, from $2 billion previously. The bank started an internal investigation into the failure of its risk management systems.

Commodities

Crude futures in afternoon trading were off 2.81% or $2.47 at $85.49 a barrel, while gold futures were down $39.80 or 2.19% at $1,774.90.

Earlier Monday, global oil cartel OPEC said that oil producers such as Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations are expected to cut their output once Libya resumes production to pre-unrest levels in the next 15 months.

Europe

European stocks finished in the red Monday as investors awaited the outcome of a teleconference held after the European markets closed between Greece, the European Union and International Monetary Fund that might indicate if the indebted nation would receive a further tranche of bailout money. The FTSE 100 closed down 1.8% and both Germany's DAX and France's CAC-40 ended the day down by 2.6%.

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