A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at the end of the trading day in New York, Jan. 24, 2014.
U.S. stocks tumbled again Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling triple digits and recording its worst week since May of 2012.
The Dow Jones fell 318 points or nearly 2.0%, while the S&P 500 declined 38 points, or 2.1%. The tech-heavy NASDAQ had the worst day of them all, declining 91 points, or 2.2%.
The losses capped a terrible week for stock markets, as traders have been unimpressed by earnings by U.S. companies, and worried about news coming in from some of the most important emerging markets. A gauge of Chinese manufacturing activity spooked investors yesterday when it showed that sector contracting, and volatility in both the Argentinian and Turkish currencies has caused investors to lose faith in the economies of those countries.
“The volatility of the emerging markets and the currency impacts are affecting U.S. markets,” Eric Teal, who helps oversee $3.5 billion as the chief investment officer at First Citizens BancShares Inc. in Raleigh, North Carolina, told Bloomberg. “Following the strong gains of last year, I think it’s to be expected that you might have an overreaction here of selling.”