China slowdown fears pull stocks for a big loss
NEW YORK - Worries about the outlook for growth in China and a slide in the price of oil pushed the stock market to its biggest loss in almost seven weeks Monday.
NEW YORK - Worries about the outlook for growth in China and a slide in the price of oil pushed the stock market to its biggest loss in almost seven weeks Monday.
Investors are nervous about China following a run of soft economic data that suggests growth in the world's second-largest economy is slowing. The worries about China helped push down the price of oil. That in turn weighed on energy stocks.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 16.11 points, or 0.80 percent, to 1,994.29. The loss was the biggest one-day decline for the index since Aug. 5. The index is down 0.5 percent this month.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 107.06 points, or 0.62 percent, to 17,172.68. The Nasdaq composite dropped 52.10 points, or 1.14 percent, to 4,527.69.
The price of oil dropped on concerns that Libya's production is picking up at a time when global economic indicators point to weaker demand from countries including China. Benchmark U.S. oil fell 89 cents to $91.52 a barrel. Analysts say U.S. oil could test the $90 mark sometime this week.
St. Louis-based chemical firm Sigma-Aldrich was among the day's winners. The company's stock surged $34.03, or 33.2 percent, to $136.40 after agreeing to be acquired by Merck KGaA, a German drug company. Merck is paying $140 a share from Sigma-Aldrich, a premium of 37 percent over Friday's closing price.
Apple also bucked the slump, logging a small gain of 10 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $101.06. The technology company said that it had sold more than 10 million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models, a record for a new model, in the three days after the phones went on sale.
In other energy trading, wholesale gasoline fell 2.7 cents to $2.585 a gallon, heating oil dropped 3 cents to $2.687 a gallon and natural gas rose 1.3 cents to $3.85 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In metals trading, the price of an ounce of silver fell 7 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $17.77 an ounce. Gold edged up $1.30, or 0.1 percent, to $1,217.90 an ounce. Copper fell five cents, or 1.7 percent, to $3.04 a pound.