Wall Street on Friday capped a turbulent week of trading with the biggest weekly loss since March as traders fretted over rising trade tensions between Washington and Beijing and signals of slower economic growth.
The latest wave of selling erased more than 550 points from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, bringing its three-day loss to more than 1,400.
For the week, major indices were down more than 4 percent.
Worries that the testy US-China trade dispute and higher interest rates would slow the US economy has made investors uneasy, leading to volatile swings in the market from one day to the next.
On Monday, news that the US and China had agreed to a 90-day truce in their escalating trade conflict drove stocks sharply higher, adding to strong gains the week before.
The next day, as doubts mounted over the likelihood of a swift resolution to the trade dispute, stocks sank.
On Friday, another early rally faded into another sharp drop.
“We’re in a market where investors just want to sell any upside that they see,” CFRA investment strategist Lindsey Bell said. “The volatility we’ve seen the last couple of weeks has been pretty extreme in both directions.”
The S&P 500 on Friday fell 62.87 points, or 2.3 percent, to 2,633.08, dropping 4.6 percent from a close of 2,760.17 on Nov. 30. The index has ended lower three out of the past four weeks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday dropped 558.72 points, or 2.2 percent, to 24,388.95, a 4.5 percent fall from 25,538.46 a week earlier.
The NASDAQ composite slid 219.01 points, or 3 percent, to 6,969.25, plunging 4.9 percent from a close of 7,330.54 on Nov. 30.
The Russell 2000 index of small-company stocks on Friday gave up 29.32 points, or 2 percent, to 1,448.09, falling 5.6 percent from a close of 1,533.27 a week earlier.
The S&P 500 and Dow are now in the red for the year again. The NASDAQ was holding on to a modest gain.
Volatility has gripped the market since early October, reflecting investors’ worries that the US Federal Reserve might overshoot with its campaign of rate increases and hurt US economic growth.
Traders also fear that a prolonged trade dispute between the US and China could crimp corporate profits and that tariffs would increase costs for businesses and consumers. Uncertainty over those issues helped drive the market’s sell-off this week.
“The Fed has taken the punch bowl away in getting back to rates where they are today,” Voya Investment Management chief market strategist Doug Cote said. “We’re also going to get back to more normal volatility.”
At the same time, traders were also worried about a sharp drop in long-term bond yields as investors plow money into US Treasuries, which tends to happen when investors expect slower economic growth.
Technology stocks accounted for much of the market’s broad slide on Friday. Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc slid 8.6 percent to US$19.46.
Healthcare sector stocks, the biggest gainer on the S&P 500 this year, took some of the heaviest losses. Medical device maker Cooper Companies Inc lost 12.3 percent to US$243.01.
Utilities, which investors favor when they are fearful, eked out a slight gain. PPL Corp gained 2.8 percent to US$31.09.
Oil prices rose after OPEC agreed to reduce global oil production by 1.2 million barrels per day for six months, beginning next month. The move would include a reduction of 800,000 barrels per day from OPEC countries and 400,000 barrels per day from Russia and other non-OPEC nations.
The news, which had been widely anticipated, pushed crude oil prices higher.
The US Department of Labor said employers last month added 155,000 jobs, a slowdown from recent months, but enough to suggest that the US economy is expanding at a solid pace, despite sharp gyrations in the stock market. The unemployment rate remained at 3.7 percent, near a five-decade low, for the third straight month.
Bond prices rose, sending yields slightly lower. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell from 2.87 percent late on Thursday to 2.86 percent.
The decline in bond yields, which affect interest rates on mortgages and other consumer loans, weighed on banks, which make more money when rates are rising.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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