FACTBOX - Record misery for some in October

Fri Oct 31, 2008 2:47pm GMT
 
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(Reuters) - October has been a month of records on financial markets, many of them unwelcome. Here are a few of them (as of 1400 GMT):

STOCK MARKETS

-- MSCI's all-country world stock index was down 21 percent for the month. It was the largest monthly fall in the benchmark's 20-year history.

-- Despite losses on Friday, however, the index was up more than 9 percent for the week of October 27 to 31, on the way to being the best or second best performance in the 20 years.

-- MSCI's emerging market index, down around 28 percent in October, was having its worst month since August 1998, during the Russian debt crisis.

-- October also saw the worst monthly performance ever for the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 and Japan's Nikkei average. The U.S. S&P 500 was close to its worst-ever monthly performance bar the nearly 22 percent loss during the October 1987 Wall Street crash.

-- The VIX index, which measures volatility on the S&P 500 through options, hit its highest level since at least 1990 during the month.

CURRENCIES

-- The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of major currencies, had its strongest month since March 1991, up nearly 8 percent.  Continued...

 
Detail showing a commercial U.S. Dollar rate against British Sterling is displayed in central London in this file photo December 1, 2006.  REUTERS/Toby Melville
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