YEREVAN, December 9. /ARKA/. U.S. stocks suffered their biggest one-day slide in nearly seven weeks on Monday as a withering selloff among energy companies, which closely tracked oil’s continued price slide, dragged down key benchmark indexes.
Downbeat economic reports from China, Japan and Europe also dented sentiment. Nervousness among investors was evident from a jump in 10-year Treasury yields, rising five basis points and a 20% jump in the CBOE Vix index, commonly knows as Wall Street’s fear gauge.
S&P 500 SPX, -0.73% closed 15 points, or 0.75, at 2,060.31. Losses were led by energy companies, as the sector dropped 3.9%. Materials, industrials and technology sector stocks also sold off, while defensive sectors such as utilities and health care drew buyers.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.59% dropped as much as 150 points at session lows, but ended 106.31 points, or 0.6% lower, at 17,852.48. McDonald’s Corp. MCD, -3.84% took a bite out of the blue-chip stock index following disappointing sales. Oil giants ExxonMobil Corp. XOM, -2.26% and Chevron Corp CVX, -3.67% also weighed on the index, dropping 2.3% and 3.7% respectively.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.84% ended the day with a loss of 40 points, or 0.8%, at 4,740.69. The heaviest-weighted component of the index, Apple Inc. AAPL, -2.26% fell 2.3%.
The broader market moves are playing out amid the back drop of crude oil’s continued slide. Crude oil CLF5, -0.46% endured a bruising day of its own, falling more than 4% on Monday and hitting a new five-year low on continued concerns about oversupply. –0–
