US stocks open lower; energy sector sinks along with oil

Facebook sank 4% and Amazon, which more than doubled previous year, lost 3%.

MARKETS OVERSEAS: Among Europe’s main indexes, Germany’s DAX fell 3.1 percent, while France’s CAC 40 dropped 2.8 percent. A gauge of lenders on the S&P 500 has plunged 25 percent since a July peak to its lowest level since October 2013 as bearish sentiment intensified this month. Wall Street was headed for a lower opening too, with Dow futures and the broader S&P 500 futures down 1.4 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was down more than 400 points at one point, shed 177.92 points (1.10 per cent) to 16,027.05. Markets were down less severely in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and New Zealand. Facebook fell 4.2 percent today for the steepest back-to-back decline since 2012.

Twenty-First Century Fox fell 0.3 percent after it lowered its annual sales forecast due to the strong dollar and a disappointing performance in its movie division.

DEAL ACTION: GoPro climbed 10.8 percent after the high-definition camera company signed a patent licensing deal with Microsoft Corp. for file storage technology.

“The market is unforgiving, it’s very nervous”, said Philippe Gijsels, the chief strategy officer of BNP Paribas Fortis in Brussels.

Stocks sink amid falling oil prices and fears of an economic slowdown around the world. The firm aims to take the for-profit college operator private. India’s Sensex was down 0.6 percent at 23,459.99. The measure of market turbulence known as the VIX is up about 29 percent so far in February, the most since August, after rising in January for a third straight month.

US stocks dropped sharply at the open for the third session in a row, following global equities lower. US shares set to fall. Investors may receive some clarity on that issue this week when Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen offers her semiannual testimony before Congress.

The larger stock markets didn’t fare much better. Seven of the 21 strategists tracked by Bloomberg have cut their year-end projection for the S&P 500. Both closed at their lowest since 2013. Credit Suisse slid 5 percent on news that the bank’s new CEO has asked for his bonus to be cut following a report of a huge fourth-quarter loss and plans for 4,000 job cuts. Energy companies were little changed after erasing a 3 percent drop. Bank of America and Citigroup were down both down about 5 percent. Visa Inc. (NYSE:V), Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

The banking sector was hardest hit Monday. The stock lost $4.08 to $66.61.

Electricity transmission company ITC Holdings fell 1.1 percent on news it agreed to be acquired by Canadian utility Fortis for $6.9 billion. Oneok and Marathon Oil slid more than 7.5 percent.