Italy, Stock Market | featured news

Stocks had their worst drop in more than three months as the prospect of political paralysis in Italy raised the specter of Europe's debt crisis flaring up again. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 216.40 points, or 1.6 percent, to 13,784.17, its biggest drop since Nov. 7. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 27.75 points, or 1.8 percent, to 1,487.85, dropping below 1,500 for the first time in three weeks. The Nasdaq composite dropped 45.57 points, or 1.4 percent, to 3,116.25.

Greece looks close to bolting from the European Union with national elections this weekend. Spain’s banks were just bailed out, and Italy might be next. And, closer to home, Wall Street is still reeling about May’s crummy jobs report. So you’d think U.S. stocks would be tanking? Nope. Welcome to the bad-news rally: The Dow Jones industrial average shot up more than 160 points on Tuesday.

U.S. stock futures are back up near Wednesday's opening price this morning as investors continue to focus firmly on Italy. Yesterday the Dow dropped almost 400 points as Italian bond yields surged past the 7% mark that is seen as the point of no return. At a time when the country has a lot of debt to refinance, borrowing costs are seen as unsustainable.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 200 points just before midday Wednesday after Italy's borrowing costs soared, a sign that Europe's debt crisis had spilled into the third-largest economy in the euro bloc.

Several European countries that banned short-selling have extended the prohibition until the end of September. When concerns about European banks’ exposure to Greek debt sent their stocks plummeting two weeks ago, market regulators in Belgium, France, Greece, Italy and Spain stepped in to prohibit traders from betting on the decline in a share’s price.