Dow Jones Industrial Average Staggers to a 272-Point Loss

It wasn’t like USA markets were in flawless shape before China’s spooked them.

Energy shares reversed an early slide and turned higher Monday along with the price of oil.

The Dow fell 469.68 points, or 2.8 percent, to 16,058.35. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index ended August down 6.3 percent, its worst showing since May 2012. The Nasdaq composite gained 48 points, or 1 percent, to 4,684.

The S&P 500 index is down 110.04 points, or 5.3 percent.

USA crude was down 0.8 percent at $44.86 a barrel after jumping more than six percent Friday on frenetic short-covering fueled by violence in Yemen, a storm in the Gulf of Mexico and refinery outages.

“We for a while have felt that there would be pockets of volatility” in markets over the next few years, Mike Amey, a portfolio manager at Pacific Investment Management Co, said, highlighting sharp moves in the Swiss franc in January and German government bonds in April and May as other examples.

Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said over the weekend that policymakers still had a “pretty strong case” for raising rates in September.

Europe closed modestly higher. Accordingly, companies are likely to remain focused on margins and the return of capital, and central bank policy accommodative.

USA stocks rose on Thursday on the back of an upbeat session in Asia.

The S&P 500 has lost 37.74 points, or 1.9 percent.

“The biggest issues facing the USA are outside of its control, and the excessive references to China in the Beige Book suggests that the Fed will be cautious of increasing interest rates, and this is coaxing out the buyers”, said IG (LSE: IGG.L – news) ‘s market analyst David Madden.

The Dow is down 1,295.04 points, or 7.3 percent.

World stocks were wobbly Wednesday on uncertainty over the economic outlook while China’s markets minimized losses amid speculation Beijing was intervening to support prices. Taiwan’s benchmark added 0.5 percent to 8,072.27.

Trading in US equities has been volatile.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.22 percent from 2.18 percent late Friday.