Stocks Are Sinking - Dow Down 230
On Friday, with oil still falling and US Treasury bonds rallying, stocks were selling off, as the blue-chip Dow was seeing the heaviest losses.
Near noon, the Dow was down 230 points, the S&P 500 was down 21 points, and the Nasdaq was off 27 points.
Oil was making new lows on Friday, with West Texas Intermediate crude futures falling below $58 a barrel after piercing the $60 for the first time on Thursday.
The latest drop in oil prices on Friday comes after the International Energy Agency cut its oil demand forecast for the fourth time in five months.
Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, was also dropping sharply on Friday, falling below $62 a barrel.
And while oil prices have dropped more than 40% in just about six months, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said at the Dealbook Conference on Thursday that after returning to New York from a trip to Middle Easy, he more bearish on oil prices.
Amid the decline in oil prices, long-date US Treasury bonds were staging a huge rally on Friday, with the yield on 10-year bonds falling below 2.1% and 30-year bond yields falling to as low as 2.76%, the lowest in about two years.
We also got two pieces of economic data on Friday, with the producer price index showing that prices fell 0.2% in November, more than the 0.1% decline that was expected by economists.
Consumer confidence, however, is booming, with the latest University of Michigan consumer confidence reading coming in at 93.8, the highest since January 2007.