Stock trader Gregory Rowe works at the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016.
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By REBECCA BOONE Associated Press Thousands of archaeological artifacts – and maps detailing where more can be found – are kept inside the national wildlife refuge buildings now being held by an… That big a plunge is defined as a bear market.
OIL PRICES: A day after USA crude oil briefly fell below $30 a barrel for the first time since late 2003, it was up 96 cents, or 3.1 per cent, to $31.43 a barrel in NY. Discouraging data on retail sales and manufacturing also weighed on the market. Consumer discretionary stocks were among the biggest decliners.
KEEPING SCORE: The Dow rose 168 points, or 1 percent, to 16,320 as of 12:15 p.m. Eastern Time.
MSCI’s broadest emerging share index slipped around 1 percent on the day to a fresh 6-1/2-year low, and was poised for a drop of more than 3 percent over the week. That put the yuan 0.1 percent up on the week, but it was still around 1.4 per cent weaker against the dollar than it started the year and has lost almost five per cent since August. The Dow and S&P 500 have now fallen about 8 percent this year, while the Nasdaq is off 10 percent.
The broad-based sell-off in Asia came after Wall Street’s three main indexes saw big losses, with energy firms taking a hammering again as oil prices hit lows not seen since the first half of 2004.
Saudi Arabian shares, one of the worst performing market along with China so far this year, hit five-year lows on Thursday. Behind the market swings are growing investor jitters about the slowdown in China’s massive economy, plunging oil prices and the implications those trends may have for USA corporations.
Meanwhile, gold miner Newcrest Mining is declining nearly 2 percent and Evolution Mining is down more than 2 percent after gold prices fell overnight.
The sharp slump in crude from over $100 a barrel in the summer of 2014 has eviscerated energy company profits and made it much harder for them to pay off their debts. Freeport-McMoRan gained 27 cents, or 7 percent, to $4.
However, the firm’s stock price still climbed 1.3 per cent Friday, although it sank 40 per cent a year ago because of the ongoing drop in commodity prices. But then a report showed that demand for fuels slipped last month.
Friday saw most regional bourses tick cautiously higher before going into reverse. South Korea’s Kospi also slid 1.3 percent to 1,875.74 while Hong Kogn’s Hang Seng dropped 1.3 percent to 19,572.56.
In the banking space, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Mizuho Financial are up 0.2 percent each and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is rising 0.5 percent. Adding to the weak sentiment was data showing that China’s bank lending plummeted last month, when banks extended 597.8 billion yuan (S$131 billion) of new loans, down sharply from 708.9 billion yuan in November.
Elsewhere, Madrid dropped 1.7 percent and Milan 1.5 percent.
The combination of sliding oil prices and China concerns delivered another knock to commodity-linked currencies.
However, it resumed its downtrend in Asia with West Texas Intermediate down 2.7 percent and Brent off 1.7 percent in the afternoon.
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CURRENCIES: The euro rose to $1.0879 from $1.0859, while the dollar fell to 117.83 yen from 118.20 yen.
