Dow has worst four-day start to a year on record

Trading in China was halted twice this week – on Thursday, the stock markets shut down after just a half hour of trading.

Oil prices tumbled Friday to their lowest in more than a decade and posted steep losses for the week, and the S&P energy sector extended this week’s slide.

Wall Street shares closed sharply down after the suspension of trading on Chinese markets for the second time this week spread alarm among investors.

However, a broader perspective of the prevailing market pressures proved to be overwhelming. The S&P 500 fell by 2.37 percent, while the NASDAQ Composite Index fell by 3.03 percent.

The Chinese yuan fell to its lowest level against the dollar since 2011.

Meanwhile, buyers continued to look to grease costs amid rising tensions within the Middle East. Crude costs rose modestly early Friday, however remained close to multi-yr lows.

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“When you have a market that begins a year with weakness, people are sort of suspect anyway”.

Soothing investors’ nerves, China nudged the yuan higher for the first time in nine days on Friday.

China, the biggest economic story of the last 30 years, has soured in the eyes of many analysts. That helped send copper producer Freeport-McMoRan down 56 cents, or 9.1 percent, to $5.61.

Nonfarm payrolls surged by 292,000 in December, and unemployment rate held steady at 5 percent.

“What’s going to come out of China is a short-term concern for the market, so maybe the… decline we’ve seen is not quite enough”, said Andrew Slimmon, a Chicago-based portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, which manages more than $400 billion in assets.

The report has brought mostly good news in recent months. The VIX “fear index” closed Friday at its highest since late September.

Already this week, China’s Shanghai composite plunged 10 percent while other major indexes like Germany’s DAX and Japan’s Nikkei 225 are down 8 percent and 7 percent, respectively. European stocks and a key dollar index advanced (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/yen-slips-against-dollar-as-china-markets-find-stability-2016-01-08), while gold futures dropped, though the safety play stayed on track for a weekly gain of about 3.5%.

Investors also cheered as China stopped allowing its currency to lose value. E-commerce giant Amazon rose $10.90, or 1.8 percent, to $618.14.

Against this backdrop, stocks in Europe fell more than 2%, while Hong Kong equities plunged 3%. Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note edged down to 2.13 percent from 2.15 percent.

No. 1 automaker Hyundai Motor dropped 0.73 percent to end at 136,500 won, and its smaller affiliate Kia Motors declined 1.62 percent to end at 48,500 won.

An “upbeat jobs number of more than 250,000 might give the market much-needed support”, Mark Kepner, managing director of worldwide sales and trading at Themis Trading, told MarketWatch (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/can-a-strong-jobs-report-stop-the-carnage-on-wall-street-2016-01-07).