The last session of the trading week saw the 2nd consecutive day of big losses on Wall Street as investors struggled with oil and economic data in the aftermath of the Federal Reserve’s rate hike Wednesday. The Dow dropped over 370 points while the NASDAQ fell below 5,000. Ben Pace, chief investment officer at HPM Partners told CNBC:
“I think the fear is (the Fed) is starting to tighten in an economy that’s starting to weaken. There is also some disappointment around the level of stimulus measures from the Bank of Japan overnight.”
Timothy Hopper, chief economist at TIAA-CREF added:
“In the context of the Fed we’ve removed some uncertainty. There’s still some uncertainty about earnings going forward and you’re experiencing that with some volatility in market pricing.”
The continued free-fall of the price of oil, which has plunged from $100 per barrel in Sept. 2014 to under $35 a barrel currently is one of the big reasons investors have been so jittery and markets have been so volatile. A key indicator may mean even more trouble for crude oil as CNBC reports below.
What’s behind the big drop in the price of oil? Read more from The NY Times here.
Here are the final numbers from Friday, 12/18/15 on Wall Street:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 17,128.45 (-367.39/ -2.10%)
NASDAQ: 4,923.08 (-79.47/ -1.59%)
S&P 500: 2,005.52 (-36.37 / -1.78%)
