Wall Street ends the day with steep losses. Mark Lasseigne has more on today's Acadiana Business Index.

 
 
  • Markets dropped sharply after Greece’s Prime Minister Papandreou called for a popular referendum on a new aid-and-debt deal for Greece.  Papandreou’s announcement caught many by surprise, and comes just days after European leaders announced a series of decisions aimed at stemming the spread of Europe's widening debt crisis.
 
  • And bank stocks fell after MF Global Holdings filed for bankruptcy. Last week, the company's debt was downgraded to junk on concerns about its holdings of European debt.
 
  • Among stocks in focus, Humana rose 5.6% after reporting third-quarter earnings that exceeded forecasts. Honda's profit dropped by over a half in the July-September quarter as the yen's surge and sluggish sales in the U.S. and Japan squeezed the bottom line. Shares fell 8.1%.
 
  • Crude oil settled at $93.32 a barrel.
 
  • And Gold closed higher at $1,725 an ounce.
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