Dow Jones suffers through worst week in five years
Investors cast aside a stronger-than-expected read on the economy and maintained negative sentiment that dominated Thursday when the market shuddered amid worries over the U.S. mortgage and corporate lending markets. Investors globally took flight from equities, shifting cash into safer investments in Treasurys.
The pullback Thursday and Friday wiped out $526.1 million in shareholder wealth from the stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.
Although the market has often rebounded after a steep drop ‘ and has done so in recent weeks ‘ investors appeared unable Friday to set aside their concerns about a weakening housing market and tightening credit.
A Commerce Department report that the U.S. gross domestic product rose at a better-than-expected pace in the second quarter appeared to do little to quell investors’ unease Friday. GDP increased at a 3.4 percent annual rate, indicated that the drag from the housing sector lessened. Economists had expected an increase of 3.3 percent.
Although the GDP reading might have reassured investors that the economy was more than holding up even with soaring fuel prices, it could also raise the possibility that the Federal Reserve, ever vigilant about inflation, might put off a rate cut or even raise rates. Higher rates would exacerbate the market’s intensifying concerns about credit.
The Dow fell 208.10, or 1.54 percent, to 13,265.47, with nearly 140 points of that loss coming in the final half-hour of trading. For the week, the index fell more than 585 points, or 4.23 percent. The week’s point decline was the worst in five years, while the percentage decline was the largest since late March 2003.
The Dow, which had seen back-and-forth sessions before the declines Thursday and Friday, only last week traded above 14,000 for the first time. The Dow’s retrenchment puts it 756 points below its high from last week. That 5.4 percent decline puts it more than halfway toward the technical threshold of a correction, which is 10 percent.
Broader stock indicators also fell Friday. The S&P 500 ended down 23.71, or 1.60 percent, at 1,458.95. For the week, the S&P gave up 4.90 percent. It was the S&P’s worst performance, in percentage terms, since the week ended July 19, 2002.
Small stocks took an especially devastating blow during the week, in part because the global economy is growing faster than that of the United States. Investors often regard profits at larger companies as more likely to hold up amid a U.S. slowdown because much of their business is drawn from overseas.