Filed under: Market News, Investing
The heavy selling on Wall Street extended to Friday, as markets were led lower by the country's largest bank. The Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI) slid another 143 points, the Nasdaq composite (^IXIC) dropped 54 and the Standard & Poor's 500 index (^GPSC) fell 17 points. All three ended sharply lower for the week.
The Nasdaq is now down about 8 percent from its recent high, putting it pretty close to correction territory -- usually defined as a 10 percent drop. And the Dow had a wild week: three triple-digit losses wrapped around a 181 point rally.
The biggest loser on the Dow was JPMorgan Chase (JPM), down 3½ percent after missing targets on both earnings and revenue.
It was a rough day for some other leading financial stock as well. Goldman Sachs (GS) and Visa (V) lost 2 percent. Visa is one of the Dow's worst performers so far this year. Over the past three months, its stock has lost 11 percent.
But Wells Fargo (WFC) bucked the trend, edging higher, after beating expectations. It's now posted 17 straight quarterly earnings gains.
Retail stocks also got socked, after Gap (GPS) reported a big drop in sales last month. Gap shares fell 2 percent. J.C. Penney (JCP) slid 9½ percent. Over the past year, it has lost nearly half its value. Aeropostale fell 5½ percent and Sears lost 5 percent. Macy's (M), American Eagle (AEO), Urban Outfitters (URBN), Burlington Stores (BURL), and Dillard's (DDS) all lost 2 percent or more.
Many of the internet and biotech stocks that have led the recent round of selling continued to fall. Twitter (TWTR) lost 3 percent, Netflix (NFLX) and Priceline (PCLN) both fell by about 2 percent and Facebook (FB) fell 1 percent. In the biotech sector, Celgene (CELG), Biogen (BIIB) and Amgen (AMGN) all fell, but Gilead (GILD) edged higher.
Finally, General Motors (GM) skidded 4 percent on a report that CEO Mary Barra received emails about the safety problems of cars recalled earlier this year as far back as 2011, even though it doesn't confirm that she knew about the problem back then.
What to Watch Monday:
- The Commerce Department releases retail sales data for March at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time and business inventories for February at 10 a.m.
- Citigroup (C) reports quarterly financial results before U.S. markets open.
