The chilling prospect of a deflationary US economy and collapsed car industry sent Wall Street stocks on Thursday to their lowest levels since the financial crisis began.

A massive rebound on Wall Street on Thursday crowned extremely volatile trading in global markets as hopes grew of greater involvement by policymakers in resolving the financial system’s problems.

Innovalues expects operating performance for 1H08 to be lower than 1H07, due mainly to continued weakness of the US$ against the S$ and currency of countries in which it operates. Raw material prices, in particular for Free Cutting Steel, have spiked significantly.