U.S. stocks tumbled again Friday, creating a sour finish to what’s been an ugly month on Wall Street.
Both the Dow and S&P are down at least 2% in this first month of 2015, as continued volatility and fear over dropping oil prices have ruled the markets in January. Even Thursday’s rally wasn’t enough to completely reverse the downward trend—though it did momentarily stop the bleeding after the Dow shed nearly 500 points in the first half of the week.
Things weren’t looking good in the early going on Friday, as the 4th-quarter GDP estimate came in at 2.6% —a few notches below the projected 3 percent. Investors were hoping that the 10 a.m. release of consumer confidence would reverse the trend of shaky data, but even a 6% rise in oil prices wasn’t enough to overcome the downward momentum by mid-afternoon.
As of 3 p.m., these are the numbers on Wall Street:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 17,305.97 (-110.88)
NASDAQ: 4,657.77 (-25.64)
S&P 500: 2,004.21 (-17.04)
