begin quote from:S&P 500 Enters Bear Market; Dow Dives 650 Points As Stocks Plunge
S&P 500 Enters Bear Market; Dow Dives 650 Points As Stocks Plunge
Wall Street presented a lump of coal for Christmas as the stock market extended its slump for a fourth straight day and the S&P 500 entered a bear market.
The key indexes gapped down at the open and pared their losses before sinking to session lows. The Dow Jones industrial average cratered 2.9%, the S&P 500 plummeted 2.7% and the Nasdaq plunged 2.2%. Small caps fared better, with the Russell 2000 down 1.4%. The S&P 500 is now 20% off its September peak, which officially marks bear market territory.
According to preliminary numbers in the stock market today, volume was lower across the board vs. Friday. The market closed early for Christmas Eve. Friday's volume was sharply elevated due to quadruple witching.
The Dow suffered the worst drubbing — with all 30 component stocks selling off more than 1%. Thirteen blue chips lost 3% or more each, led by Nike (NKE) (down 6%), and Microsoft (MSFT), Procter & Gamble (PG) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) (down 4% apiece).
Procter & Gamble tumbled well below its 50-day moving average for the first time in more than two months. Volume was lighter than usual, but the sharp breach of the support line triggered a sell signal. P&G is 10% off its 52-week high; J&J and Nike are a respective 17% and 20% below their peaks.
Automakers, utilities and energy stocks were among the biggest sector losers in the stock market today. Oil stocks got hit amid a 5% plunge in West Texas intermediate crude prices.
Tesla Crashes
Tesla (TSLA) slumped more than 7%, piercing its 200-day line for the first time since late October. Shares sank further below a 366.85 handle buy point, after triggering the 7% to 8% loss-sell rule last week. They're now 23% below the entry. Tesla cut prices on Model 3 cars in China and said it would reimburse U.S. customers who missed tax credits due to production delays.
The few industry groups bucking the sell-off included gold miners, generic-drug makers and retailers.
In the IBD 50, Medpace Holdings (MEDP), Alarm.com Holdings (ALRM), Kirkland Lake Gold (KL) and Match Group (MTCH) managed gains of more than 1% each.
But real estate investment trusts, which had outperformed lately, got cranked. Medical Properties Trust (MPW), Store Capital (STOR) and Rexford Industrial Realty (REXR) plunged more than 4% apiece.
The Innovator IBD 50 ETF (FFTY) gave up 1.3%.
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Dow Jones Falls 3,700 Points For The Month; This Blue-Chip Stock Triggers Sell Signal
The Dow Jones industrial average is bouncing off early-morning lows, but market bears still dominate the action in stocks today. Procter & Gamble (PG), a member of the 30-stock Dow industrials, cut through its 50-day moving average to prompt a key sell signal.
Near the early market close on Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average made a session low of 21,803, down as much as 3,735 points (or 14.6%) for the month of December. At around noon in New York, the Dow fell more than 1.9%. Wall Street closes at 1 p.m. ET today ahead of the Christmas holiday.
The Nasdaq composite briefly rebounded into positive ground before cooling off again. The tech-weighted index slumped 1.1%, doing better than other indexes as bargain hunters propped up a smidgen of internet content, retail, software and biotech stocks. At least five IBD industry groups in the vast retail sector, including apparel and shoes, department stores and specialty retailing, rallied 1% or more.
The S&P 500 sank more than 2.7% as shares of automaker, utility, oil and gas, solar, and food and beverage firms paced the downside. Small caps did not fare much better. The S&P SmallCap 600 dropped more than 2%.
The Dow utility average slid more than 4%, while the Dow Jones transportation average fell nearly 2.7%. Such steep declines by these sector-based indexes indicate greater concern over the economy in the next six to 12 months.
On a monthly basis, no month since March 2009 comes even close to the damage seen in the Dow Jones industrials this month. The swing from low to high during the month of August 2011 reached nearly 1,700 points. The Dow closed 530 points lower, or 4.4%, that month. In the month of October that same year, the 30-stock blue chip index swung 1,880 points from low to high before finishing that month with a 9.5% gain.
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