NEW YORK (AFP) ? US stocks sank on Friday, weighed down by an unexpectedly negative report on the country's economic growth and nervousness over the debt-ceiling battle in Washington.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 96.87 points (0.79 percent) to close at 12,143.24. It has now fallen for six consecutive trading days.
The broader S&P 500 tumbled 8.39 points (0.65 percent) to 1,292.28, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shed 9.87 points (0.36 percent) to close at 2,756.38.
The Dow plunged more than 100 points in opening trade after the government reported that US gross domestic product grew just 1.3 percent in the second quarter, a much slower pace than economists had expected.
Notably, the government also slashed its estimate for first-quarter GDP growth from 1.9 percent to just 0.4 percent.
"The revision of Q1 was pretty stunning. Not a good overall number to finish the week on," said Marc Pado, chief US market strategist for Cantor Fitzgerald.
Stock markets later made up some ground but remained depressed as investors worried about the looming threat of a default by the US government or a downgrade of the United States's top-notch credit rating.
Only four days remain before a deadline set by the US Treasury for when it says it will stop being able to pay its bills unless Congress raises the government's $14.29 trillion borrowing limit.
Congress has been unable to reach a compromise as deeply divided Democrats and Republicans have struggled to bridge their differences over taxes and government spending.
In company news, shares of Yahoo! fell 3.0 percent after the Internet services firm announced that it had settled a dispute with its Chinese partners over payment-processing unit Alipay.
Yahoo! claimed victory in the agreement, but some analysts compared the resolution of the dispute to a forced sale.
Shares of Chevron, the number-two US oil company, dropped 1.0 percent even though it reported that its second-quarter profits had surged 43 percent to $7.73 billion.
Bond prices rallied. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 2.81 percent from 2.95 percent late on Thursday, while the 30-year bond dropped to 4.13 percent from 4.26 percent.
Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.
minimum wage elizabeth warren deloitte wtf fisher investments dr oz nic
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.