Indexes fell on Thurday over fear of global financial slowdown. Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq returned to negative territory, while financial sectors leading the decline.
Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 174 points on Thursday to 17,541.96, this 0.98% drop is the worst since February 23, led by financial sectors. While S&P 500 (.SPX) plunged from 1.2% or 24.75 points to 2,041.91 and Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) slumped from 1.47% to 4,848.37 losing 72.35 points. The decline has erased the expectation of the market to bounce back as indicated earlier this week.
"The U.S. market was trading in a fantasyland on its own while markets around it were selling off pretty harshly. That was unsustainable," Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at The Lindsey Group told CNN Money.
The Financial sector was leading the decline, triggered by a very low interest rates which raised concerns on profit squeeze. Both Citigroup and Goldman Sachs were down as much as 4%, while Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase dropped by 2.5%.
Aligned with drop in banks, financial companies also fell. Charles Schwab and E*Trade Financial Corp. declined more than 4.7% along with others. Financial sectors are affected by turbulence in the currency market, as dollar plunged against yen by 1.2% on Thursday.
The Market expects that the sudden currency move will make Bank of Japan keep yen at low rates. This year, the Japanese central bank has discouraged investors by introducing negative rates. Yen was close to 108.4 yen against the U.S. dollar, a new high record which was previously reached in October 2014.
Market Strategist at Prudential Financial, Quincy Krosby, told CNBC, "The currency markets are dominating overall market moves and anytime you see an important move in one currency or another from a currency market it seems to cause nervousness in equity markets."
Although the market is down, analysts have not been able to pinpoint the clear trend. Analysts see that there are too much negative sentiment in the market right now, as global oil glut, currency market and interest rates play important role in market volatility.
Senior Portfolio Manager at Federated Investors Don Ellenberger told Bloomberg regarding the volatility, "There's a bit of a risk-off trade going on. It's hard to define a clear trend right now without a whole lot going on, but if you look around the market, earnings is something everyone's focused on. There's so much negative sentiment in the market right now, you can see it when you look at the money that's poured out of equity funds."
Indexes fell on Thursday bringing the market to negative territory. Fear of global financial slowdown has triggered the plunge, as dollar weakened.
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