Major equity indexes in the United States closed the last day of the week modestly lower as the crude oil sell-off continued to weigh on the energy sector.
With today’s drop, the barrel of West Texas Intermediate lost more than $5 on a weekly basis and recorded its lowest weekly close in 13 months near mid-$50s. The commodity-sensitive S&P 500 Energy Index fell 3.26% on a daily basis. “If we get clarity on any of these – oil prices, trade war with China and the Federal Reserve’s rate of monetary policy tightening – we could go a long way towards making investors comfortable in investing in the market,” Neil Massa, senior equity trader at Manulife Asset Management in Boston, told Reuters on Friday.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 Communications Services and Materials indexes both erased over 1% on the day to make it difficult for Wall Street to stage a recovery in the holiday-shortened session. On the other hand, ahead of Black Friday sales, the S&P 500 Consumer Staples Index added 0.35%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 178.74 points, or 0.73%, to 24,285.95, the S&P 500 erased 17.37 points, or 0.66%, to 2,632.56 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 33.27 points, or 0.48%, to 6,938.98. For the week, these three indexes dropped 4.4%, 3.8%, and 4.3%, respectively. The DJIA and the Nasdaq Composite both posted their largest weekly percentage drops since March.
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