The U.S. stock markets opened on August 10 with a sharp decline in prices. Within first minutes of trading the Dow Jones lost 2.67 percent and once again fell below 11 000 points, S&P 500 sank 2.63 percent to 1142 points, and Nasdaq fell by 2.76 percent to 2414 points.
The U.S. indices increased by 4-5 percent the day before as a result of investors' reaction to Ben Bernanke's statement. In his statement the head of the Federal Reserve promised to keep interest rates low until at least 2013. Moreover, on August 9, when stock market indices saw a decrease by 5-6 percent caused by the U.S. credit rating downgrade, the U.S. markets were busy with paring losses of August 8.
According to Reuters, investors' concerns about the state of the U.S. economy and its public debt level which remains high led to a break in the stock market rally. Furthermore, since Mr Bernanke has not announced a new round of quantitative easing as many analysts expected, investors may start selling the stocks. Quantitative easing implies an increase in volume of the Fed's investments into bonds and other securities to saturate the market with money.
Walt Disney's stocks, which are among blue chips of the U.S. stock markets, lost nearly 13 percent earlier in the session, whereas AOL's securities fell by 7.7 percent. Investors were disappointed by financial statements of both companies, which were published on August 10.
