US Stocks Drop After Weak Data Triggers Sell Off

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index wiped out its gains for the year as banks sank after reporting earnings while a drop in retail sales reignited concern about the economy and a second health worker in Texas caught Ebola.

KeyCorp retreated 7.9 percent, the biggest drop in the S&P 500, after the lender’s quarterly revenue trailed analysts estimates. Bank of America Corp. sank 5.6 percent after revenue declined. A group of bank shares in the S&P 500 lost 4.7 percent, the most since 2012. Intel Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Walt Disney Co. fell more than 3.3 percent to lead losses in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The S&P 500 tumbled 2.2 percent to 1,837.07 at 12:45 p.m. in New York. The index is down 0.5 percent for the year and has lost 8.5 percent since a record on Sept. 18. The Dow fell 331.56 points, or 2 percent to 15,983.63. The Nasdaq Composite Index sank 1.7 percent.

“The economy isn’t as strong as perhaps everyone thought,” Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at Milwaukee-based RW Baird & Co., which oversees $110 billion, said in a phone interview. “The concern here is that the weakness in Europe and Asia is going to be exported to the U.S. and our economy is going to be negatively impacted.”

via SOURCE

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