Augusat Started with a sharp decline

NASDAQ kicked off the month of August with a very sharp decline on Monday 4 August 2008. It closed on 2285.56 reporting a total loss of -25.40 %. The market continued to decline due to major decline in crude oil prices that plunged to 3.0 % to 121.30 per barrel. There were only three sectors i.e. consumer staples (+1.2%), consumer discretionary (+0.5%), and health care (+1.3%) that were able to gain a substantial amount of profits. Cocoa (-7.6%), soybeans (-5.1%), natural gas (-6.7%), and corn (-5.0%) were the sessions worst performing commodities. It proved to be profitable session for the stocks of various other sectors such as consumer products, healthcare facilities, tobacco, airlines, automobile manufacturing, etc. However, oil and gas exploration, oil and gas drilling, steel, fertilizers and agricultural chemicals, etc underperformed.