|
 Selling accelerated in afternoon trading after Russia launched
military exercises near its border with Ukraine, showing no sign of
backing down in its plans to annex its neighbor's Crimea region
despite a stronger-than-expected push for sanctions from the EU and
the United States.
In an unusually robust and emotionally worded speech, German
Chancellor Angela Merkel warned of "catastrophe" unless Russia
changes course.
The CBOE Volatility index VIX <.VIX>, Wall Street's so-called fear
gauge, jumped more than 12 percent to 16.22. The index usually moves
inversely to the S&P 500. A key emerging market exchange-traded
fund, iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF <EEM.P>, fell 1.8 percent to
$38.19.
"(Ukraine headlines) are certainly going to be the catalyst but
there is more under the surface," said Paul Mendelsohn, chief
investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte,
Vermont.
"There is no military solution to this. All it is, is positioning — and let's be realistic, these Chinese numbers last night were not
good."
China's economy slowed markedly in the first two months of the year,
as growth in investment, retail sales and factory output all fell to
multi-year lows.
The S&P 500 broke below its 10-day and 14-day moving averages, which
were acting as short-term technical support levels. It also broke
below the 1,850 level.
[to top of second column] |
The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> fell 231.19 points or 1.41
percent, to 16,108.89, the S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 21.86 points or 1.17
percent, to 1,846.34 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 62.912
points or 1.46 percent, to 4,260.42.
Economically-sensitive sectors such as industrials <.SPLRCI>, down
1.5 percent, and technology <.SPLRCT>, down 1.6 percent, fared the
worst. General Electric <GE.N> fell 1.6 percent to $25.34; Apple Inc
<AAPL.O> lost 1.1 percent to $530.65.
Earlier, gains were supported by better-than-expected weekly initial
jobless claims and retail sales data for February, although the
prior month of retail sales was revised lower.
Import prices increased 0.9 percent last month, their biggest rise
in a year as petroleum soared, but there was little sign of a broad
pick-up in imported inflation.
About 7.5 billion shares traded on U.S. exchanges, according to BATS
Global Markets, above the 6.8 billion daily average so far this
month.
(Editing by Nick Zieminski)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
