Major Averages Close Firmly In Negative Territory

(RTTNews) - After coming under significant selling pressure in early trading on Monday, stocks remained stuck in the red throughout the session. The losses on the day came on the heels of the substantial volatility that was seen last week.

The weakness on Wall Street came amid another sharp drop by the price of crude oil, which has fallen to its lowest levels in almost six years.

Crude for February delivery tumbled $2.29 to $46.07 a barrel after plunging $4.33 or 8.2 percent to $48.36 a barrel last week.

Oil service stocks saw substantial weakness on the day amid the drop by the price of crude oil. Reflecting the weakness in the sector, the Philadelphia Oil Service Index tumbled by 4.4 percent to its lowest closing level in well over two years.

Within the oil service sector, Core Laboratories (CLB) and Oil States (OIS) posted particularly steep losses, falling by 7.3 percent and 7.2 percent, respectively.

Considerable weakness was also visible among electronic storage stocks, as reflected by the 3.3 percent loss posted by the NYSE Arca Disk Drive Index. SanDisk (SNDK) helped to lead the sector lower, tumbling by 13.9 percent.

Steel, oil producer, natural gas, and semiconductor stocks also saw significant weakness on the day, moving lower along with most of the other major sectors.

On the other hand, gold stocks showed a strong move to the upside, driving the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index up by 4.3 percent. The strength in the sector came as gold for February climbed $16.70 to $1,232.80 an ounce.

The major averages moved roughly sideways in afternoon trading before closing firmly in negative territory. The Dow fell 96.53 points or 0.5 percent to 17,737.37, the Nasdaq slid 39.36 points or 0.8 percent to 4,664.71 and the S&P 500 dropped 16.55 points or 0.8 percent to 2,028.26.