Wall St. down over 2 percent as tech rout deepens, oil drops

 


Wall Street was deep in the red on Monday, as technology stocks extended a selloff from Friday and U.S. crude oil slipped below $30 per barrel, sending investors scurrying for cover to safe-haven assets.
The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 2 percent to its lowest since October 2014, weighed down by Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Facebook (FB.O), while the Dow Jones industrial average shed more than 300 points.
"Equities are in a 'go-nowhere-fast' mode, with a downward bias in the near term," said Terry Sandven, chief equity strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis.
"We need oil to stabilize to provide some confidence for investors, partly because to a degree, investors' stress is high, earnings visibility is low, and market internals continue to weaken," he said.
U.S. crude oil prices fell 2.6 percent after a meeting between Saudi Arabia and Venezuela failed to reassure investors of measures to bolster prices. [O/R]
Chesapeake Energy (CHK.N) was the latest casualty of lower energy prices, tumbling 35 percent to $2 after sources told Reuters that the beleaguered natural gas company had hired restructuring lawyers.
Demand for crude is considered a barometer for global economic health, and markets across the world have tracked the rise and fall in the price of the commodity this year.
At 10:28 a.m. ET the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was down 337.01 points, or 2.08 percent, at 15,867.96.
The S&P 500 .SPX was down 39.97 points, or 2.13 percent, at 1,840.08.
The Nasdaq Composite index .IXIC was down 112.53 points, or 2.58 percent, at 4,250.61.
Gold XAU= prices rose to their highest since June and the yield on 30-year U.S. treasuries hit their lowest since April.
All 10 major S&P sectors were lower, with the 2.8 percent fall in energy stocks .SPNY leading the decliners.
Microsoft's (MSFT.O) 3.1 percent decline to $48.61 also dragged down the S&P 500. Facebook (FB.O) and Amazon (AMZN.O) were off about 3 percent, while Alphabet (GOOGL.O) dropped 1.6 percent.
Dismal sales outlooks from marquee technology names Tableau Software had sent shares in the enterprise sector crashing on Friday on fears that IT managers were curbing spending.
IT services provider Cognizant on Monday added to those worries. Cognizant (CTSH.O) dropped 6 percent to $55 after it forecast its slowest revenue growth in 14 years.
Tableau (DATA.N), which almost halved in value on Friday, was down 4.8 percent at $39.35.
Twitter (TWTR.N) shed 5.4 percent to hit a new record low of $14.87 after reports over the weekend that the company was planning to change how it display tweets.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 2,656 to 301. On the Nasdaq, 2,195 issues fell and 347 advanced.
The S&P 500 index showed 5 new 52-week highs and 67 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 2 new highs and 331 new lows.