Never before has Wall Street gotten off to a worse start to a year.
The stock market capped the first two weeks of 2016 with a steep slide Friday that sent the Dow Jones industrial average down nearly 400 points.
All three major stock indexes – the Dow, the Nasdaq composite and the Standard & Poor’s 500 – are now in what’s known as a correction, or a drop of 10 percent or more from their recent peaks.
The market has been on a stomach-churning ride since the start of the year, wrenched up – but mostly down – because of alarm over a slowdown in China and the plunging price of oil to its lowest level in 12 years. Investors are already seeing damage to U.S. corporate profits, particularly at energy companies.
The Dow slid 390.97 points, or 2.4 percent, to 15,988.08. The average had been down more than 500 points early in the afternoon. The S&P 500 ended down 41.51 points, or 2.2 percent, at 1,880.33. The Nasdaq dropped 126.59 points, or 2.7 percent, to 4,488.42.