Wall St. swept up in oil rout

Source: REUTERS


The selloff since the start of the year continued on Wall Street on Wednesday, led by energy stocks, as crude oil prices fell to new lows and on deepening fears of slowing global growth.
The selloff was broad: All 30 Dow components were lower and all the 10 major S&P sectors were also in the red.
The beaten-down S&P energy sector's 2.27 percent fall led the declines. Chevron dropped 5.9 percent and Exxon 3.1 percent.
U.S. crude prices sank to their lowest since 2003 and Brent held close to 12-year lows as a supply glut bumped up against bearish financial news that deepened worries over demand.
"The damage being done in energy is spreading," said Brian Fenske, head of sales trading at ITG in New York.

"Just getting up every morning and seeing the S&P futures down 1-2 percent has a near-term psychological impact and puts some investors into risk-off mode," Fenske said.
At 11:01 a.m. ET (0601 GMT), the Dow Jones industrial average was down 428.67 points, or 2.68 percent, at 15,587.35.
The S&P 500 was down 54.73 points, or 2.91 percent, at 1,826.6 and the Nasdaq Composite index was down 140.02 points, or 3.13 percent, at 4,336.94.
Fears of a slowdown in China, the world's second-largest economy and a key market for U.S. companies, has also weighed on equities and commodities, leading to turbulent start to the year on Wall Street.
The S&P 500 has fallen 8 percent so far this year.
U.S. corporate earnings are unlikely to offer relief: S&P 500 earnings on average are expected to fall 4.4 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.
IBM fell 4.5 percent to $122.37 and Goldman Sachs dropped 1.7 percent to $154.30 after both issued disappointing earnings reports.
Bellwethers Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet and Microsoft were down between 1.5 percent and 5.7 percent.
Netflix was also swept up by the downbeat sentiment, dropping 8 percent to $99.11, despite reporting a better-than-expected growth in its subscriber base.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 3,003 to 90. On the Nasdaq, 2,479 issues fell and 245 advanced.
The S&P 500 index showed no new 52-week highs and 169 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded three new highs and 628 lows.