NEW YORK, Jan. 20 (UPI) — The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by more than 500 points Wednesday morning, with more than 1,000 listed stocks achieving their 52-week lows in the first 20 minutes of trading.
At 12:50 p.m. EST Wednesday, the index was 15,458 for a 550 point slide. The NASDAQ and Standard and Poor’s 500 each fell by similar percentage amounts.
European stocks traded at around 2 percent lower, and Japan’s Nikkei index was down 3.7 percent, 20 percent lower than its 52-week high.
Oil continued to trade at lows not seen in more than a decade. U.S. oil for February delivery hovered at $27.50 per barrel, with March commodity contracts near $28.50 per barrel. Additionally, the December U.S. Consumer Price Index for December fell 0.1 percent, and building permits in the United States were off by 3.9 percent
Tuesday’s Dow Jones average closed 27 points higher than Monday’s, but technical strategist Katie Stockton of the institutional trading company BTIG told CNBC, “This is characteristic or a downtrend, not a correction.”
