With Tokyo off almost 1,500 points – those more familiar with the London and New York indices should simply knock a nought off to get the feel of the fall, and the perception growing that Iraqi threats to close the US embassy in Kuwait today would be taken as an attack on American territory and the signal for the US troops in Saudi Arabia to open hostilities, there was no way that Wall Street was going to open in chirpy mood and the market opened a shade lower and just headed on down with the circuit breakers clamped on within minutes of the opening: by 9.50am, IBM was off $2.25 to stand emphatically below the psychologically important $100 mark at $96.625; DEC was off $2.375 at $62.25; Tandem Computers Inc was off $0.5 at $13.625, Hewlett-Packard Co was off $1.25 at $31.50, Microsoft Corp slumped $2.50 to $51.25 and Apple Computer Inc was off $1.125 at $34.
