In the energy market Friday, the bottom fell out, with crude for November delivery crashing to a fresh one-year low, closing at $77.70/barrel, down $8.89. November reformulated gasoline plunged 22 cents, to $1.807/gallon.

Gold was strong from the far East through the first half of London on Friday, but it started down with the COMEX open, then really fell off a cliff at the noon hour, falling $60 in the next two hours, before rallying back a bit during the Globex to finish at $849.90, down $62.50. Despite the wretched day, gold was up nearly 2% on the week.

The base metals nearly all took a thrashing on Wednesday. Copper peaked at the New York open, but sagged with only a couple of feeble rallies through the day, finishing at $2.4025/lb., down 19½ cents. Nickel was crushed, falling below the $6 mark around mid-morning and failing to re-take the level, closing at $5.8173/lb., down 60 cents.

In the currency market, the dollar was little changed against the euro. Late Wednesday, the euro was trading at $1.3672 vs. $1.3653 on Tuesday. The big event du jour was that, “For the first time since September 2001, central banks around the world have delivered a coordinated interest rate cut,” wrote Kathy Lien, director of currency research at GFT.

The blood bath continued during Tuesday trading on the Canadian Markets, as investors ran for the exits in every sector but gold. For the tale of the tape, the TSX Exchange lost 3.92%, while the TSX Gold Index bucked the trend by gaining 1.2% and the TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s largest junior exploration bourse, dropped 3.50% with the declining issuers swamping the advancers by a 645 to 348 margin on good volume of 167 million shares traded.