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 The expiration of stock and index options contracts added volatility
in a heavy trading volume day.
The S&P and Dow had their worst two-day performance since Sept. 1,
while indexes posted losses for the week.
"It's a confluence of all the factors: oil prices continuing to run
down, the Chinese trying to counteract the dollar and everyone is
digesting, globally, what the Fed's announcement means for emerging
markets and everything else," said J.J. Feldman, portfolio manager
at Miracle Mile Advisors in Los Angeles.
The week was dominated by the Fed, which raised rates on Wednesday
for the first time in nearly a decade.
Financial stocks <.SPSY>, which fell 2.5 percent, was the
worst-performing S&P sector on Friday. The biggest drag on the
financial index, Berkshire Hathaway <BRkb.N>, was down 3.3 percent.
Bank of America <BAC.N> was down 3.1 percent, while Wells Fargo
<WFC.N> was down 3 percent and JPMorgan <JPM.N> was off 2.8 percent.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> closed down 367.25 points,
or 2.1 percent, to 17,128.55, the S&P 500 <.SPX> had lost 36.34
points, or 1.78 percent, to 2,005.55 and the Nasdaq Composite
<.IXIC> had dropped 79.47 points, or 1.59 percent, to 4,923.08.
For the week, the Dow fell 0.8 percent, the S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent
and the Nasdaq lost 0.2 percent.
Wall Street also remained anxious over an oil glut amid a demand
slowdown. U.S. crude <CLc1> futures settled the day down 22 cents,
or 0.6 percent, at $34.73 a barrel. For the week, oil lost 2.5
percent.
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Volatility was slightly higher than usual on account of "quadruple
witching" - the expiry of options on stocks and indexes as well as
futures on indexes and single stocks.
While higher volume and a pick-up in volatility are not unusual on
options expiration day, Randy Frederick, managing director of
trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas, said
Friday's sell-off appeared to be tied more to the Fed’s move and
lower oil prices.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 2,013 to
1,074, for a 1.87-to-1 ratio on the downside; on the Nasdaq, 1,813
issues fell and 1,084 advanced for a 1.67-to-1 ratio favoring
decliners.
The S&P 500 posted one new 52-week high and 37 new lows; the Nasdaq
recorded 36 new highs and 136 new lows.
Volume on the U.S. exchanges was 11.85 billion shares, compared to
7.24 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading
days, according to Thomson Reuters data.
(Reporting by Marcus E. Howard; Editing by Dan Grebler and James
Dalgleish)
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