The euro climbed to $1.3522 after the International Monetary Fund beefed up its lending instruments and unveiled a new six-month liquidity line. By doing this, the IMF was offering “a short-term liquidity window” to countries at risk from the euro-zone crisis.
Gold prices rose, as did prices of other commodities like oil, copper and grains as investors looked for places to put their money besides stocks.
Data showed the US economy grew at a 2 percent annual rate in the third quarter, below the government’s initial growth estimate of 2.5 percent and below expectations for a 2.5 percent reading.
“US economic data proved a huge miss, which does not contribute to positive sentiment,” said Michael Woolfolk, managing director at BNY Mellon Global Markets in New York.
In the European stock market, the FTSEurofirst 300 index ended down 0.6 percent at 914.19. An index of world stocks, measured by MSCI, shed 0.1 percent.
The release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s Nov. 1-2 policy-makers’ meeting appeared to have little impact on the markets.
On Wall Street, stocks slipped as concerns lingered that politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are failing to tackle huge debt burdens.
Late Monday, a special US congressional committee said it failed to reach a deal on reducing government deficits. Investors are worried the stalemate will make it more difficult to pass extensions of measures like payroll-tax cuts that could help stimulate the economy.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 39.09 points, or 0.34 percent, to 11,508.22. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index shed 2.37 points, or 0.20 percent, to 1,190.61. But the Nasdaq Composite Index inched up just 0.97 of a point, or 0.04 percent, to 2,524.11.
The S&P, which had already fallen through a key support level of 1,200, fell to around 1,181 before recovering in an effort to stay above 1,187 — the next technical support for the index, which represents a 61.8 percent retracement of the 2011 high-to-low.
Shares of computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. slid 2.8 percent to $26.12. The stock fell 4 percent earlier to become the Dow’s worst performer after HP gave a 2012 profit outlook that was below consensus.
Euro-zone banks increased their borrowing at the European Central Bank to the highest level in two years on Tuesday.
The euro saw volatile trading as Spain and Italy faced borrowing costs viewed by many as unsustainable. With little confidence in official efforts to build a bailout fund big enough to rescue them, trust between banks holding their debt vanished, causing lending to dry up.
US Treasuries’ prices also edged lower despite the disappointing data on third-quarter growth, as bond market investors focused on underlying data showing weak inventory accumulation amid sturdy consumer spending as indications that growth would pick up in the current quarter.
“Real final sales were up 3.6 percent so the engine of growth continued to hum, and weakness in inventories should set up a rebound that will boost overall growth to about 3 percent in the fourth quarter,” said Thomas Simons, money market economist at Jefferies & Co. in New York.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury note dipped 2/32 in price, yielding 1.96 percent versus 1.95 percent on Monday.
Spain’s Treasury paid the highest yields in 14 years to issue short-term bills, heaping pressure on center-right Prime Minister-elect Mariano Rajoy to soothe nervous markets by fleshing out austerity plans following Sunday’s emphatic election victory.
Money market funds have cut their total exposure to European banks by 42 percent since the end of May, straining those banks’ funding capabilities and forcing them to go to the European Central Bank as its lender of last resort for short-term funds, according to a report from Fitch Ratings.
The ECB’s weekly limit-free handout of funding underscored the widespread problems on Tuesday with 178 banks requesting a total of 247 billion euros. That was the highest since mid-2009.
Three-month Euribor rates, traditionally the main gauge of unsecured interbank euro lending and a mix of interest-rate expectations and banks’ appetite for lending, fixed unchanged at 1.467 percent just before the results of the ECB’s operation.
Six-month rates edged up to 1.695 percent from 1.694 percent while 12-month rates were fractionally higher at 2.030 percent, from 2.029 percent.
