US stocks plummet as UK votes to quit EU

 U.S. stocks ended sharply lower Friday following global rout, after Britain voted to leave the European Union in a historic referendum.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 611.21 points, or 3.39 percent, to 17,399.86. The S&P 500 slumped 76.02 points, or 3.60 percent, to 2,037.30. The Nasdaq Composite Index plunged 202.06 points, or 4.12 percent, to 4,707.98.

The Leave camp won Britain's Brexit referendum on Friday morning by obtaining nearly 52 percent of ballots, pulling the country out of the 28-nation European Union (EU) after its 43-year membership.

The stunning referendum results sent global markets on a wild descent, and were seen by many economists as a threat to global economic stability.

European equities nosedived Friday on the stunning referendum results. German benchmark DAX index at Frankfurt Stock Exchange dived 6.82 percent in the early trading, while French benchmark index CAC 40 sank 8.04 percent.

In Asia, Tokyo shares also plummeted Friday on the results, with its benchmark Nikkei stock index losing nearly 8 percent, while Chinese benchmark Shanghai Composite Index dipped 1.30 percent to 2,854.29 points.

"The market reaction was bigger than it might have been if traders had not been so confident the UK would remain," said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial.

On the U.S. economic front, new orders for manufactured durable goods in May decreased 5.3 billion U.S. dollars, or 2.2 percent, to 230.7 billion dollars, the Commerce Department announced Friday.

"A pullback in May was expected but the larger than anticipated, broad-based decline serves to reinforce underlying weakness. A strong dollar and softening global growth has weighed on demand for U.S. goods for much of the last two years," said Sophia Kearney-Lederman, an economic analyst at FTN Financial.

Meanwhile, U.S. consumer sentiment slid in June due to rising concerns about future economic growth. The final reading of the consumer sentiment for June fell to 93.5 from 94.7 in May, said the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment on Friday.

For the week, all three major indices suffered big losses, with the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq dropping 1.6 percent, 1.6 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively.

source : xinhua