Leading Wall St stocks slumped in early trading as the US dollar fell against major currencies, with export oriented firms coming under pressure. By mid-morning, the Dow Jones was down 89.97 points to 9554.85 and the Nasdaq fell by 30.1 points to 1,875.6. The dollar tumbled against the Yen today after a G7 meeting called for more exchange rate flexibility, triggering declines in world equities markets that spilled onto Wall Street. Firms with a significant part of their business based on exports, such as tech firms and carmakers, suffered most amid fears that a weaker dollar will hurt sales on world markets.
IBM, Microsoft, Ford, General Motors Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems and General Electric all racked up losses of between 1pc and 3pc in early deals. Mobile phone manufacturer, Motorola bucked the trend and rose by 9pc after its chief executive announced his resignation. Wall Street analysts had issued stock upgrades that were dependent on Christopher Galvin's leaving the firm citing poor management decisions for much of the firm's woes. Telco giant, AT&T rose 3.3pc after announcing plans to pay off USD1.1 billion of its accumulated debts. //www.fxcentre.com