The world this week

摘要

The passage of America's $700 billion banking bail-out by Congress on October 3rd did little to halt the crisis in the world's financial markets. On the first day of trading after the bill was signed into law, stock-markets in America, Europe and Asia witnessed their steepest falls in two decades. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below the 10,000 mark, the ftse 100 recorded its biggest one-day drop (in terms of points) and Russia's stock-market plunged by almost 20%. On October 8th, Tokyo's benchmark index fell by 9.4% and Hong Kong's by 8.2%.