"Free Markets" And Stock Exchanges Tumble In Fear Of Losing Some Of Their Corporate Welfare And 'Socialism For The Rich' Entitlements
The S&P/TSX composite index gave back a big chunk of last week's strong advance, losing 158.7 points to 11,923.04 and the TSX Venture Exchange dropped 16.12 points to 1,541.49.
Finance ministers from the Group of 20 leading industrial and developing countries reiterated their belief during the weekend that Europe, in particular Germany and France, are thrashing out a comprehensive plan to stabilize the debt crisis.
And that led traders to hope that a program would be finalized at a European Union summit which concludes Sunday and then presented the following week at the G20 government leaders meeting.
But on Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffan Seibert, said the EU meeting is only an "important step" on a long road.
Seibert observed that Merkel was saying that renewed dreams of having everything solved and done with next month "will again not be fulfilled."
"I think everyone last week decided that the European crisis was over, that it was all going to get solved by the end of the month," said Kate Warne, Canadian markets specialist at Edward Jones in St. Louis.
"Nobody should be hugely surprised because the process in Europe seems to be to promise a lot and deliver a little and we've seen that for the last year and a half."
The Canadian dollar fell 1.12 cents US to 97.84 cents US as the U.S. dollar strengthened following Seibert's comments.
U.S. markets also tumbled following a solid gain last week, with the Dow Jones industrials tumbling 247.49 points to 11,397. The Nasdaq composite index lost 52.93 points to 2,614.92 and the S&P 500 index was down 23.72 points at 1,200.86."
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