AFP, New York :
Crashing oil prices dragged US stocks to one of their worst losses of the year Friday, completing a global rout of equity markets after what has been for many a banner year.
Fears that the now-45 percent crash in crude prices could do more harm to many countries, companies and banks than it does help to consumers drove the fall in stocks, on top of the impact it has had on oil industry shares.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.79 percent and the S&P 500 tumbled 1.62 percent. It was the S&P 500’s first weekly loss in nearly two months and its worst single-week decline — 3.5 percent-since May 2012.
Crashing oil prices dragged US stocks to one of their worst losses of the year Friday, completing a global rout of equity markets after what has been for many a banner year.
Fears that the now-45 percent crash in crude prices could do more harm to many countries, companies and banks than it does help to consumers drove the fall in stocks, on top of the impact it has had on oil industry shares.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.79 percent and the S&P 500 tumbled 1.62 percent. It was the S&P 500’s first weekly loss in nearly two months and its worst single-week decline — 3.5 percent-since May 2012.
