NEW YORK (AFP) - This is a brutal week for the U.S. stock market as investors sell stocks on signs that economic growth has slowed down the world's largest.
Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 1.4 percent on Friday, posted a loss of six weeks in a row for the first time since October 2002.
The Nasdaq fell 2.9 percent and the S & P 500 fell two percent.
Most of the decline at the beginning of this week appear "drunk" from data poor job the previous week, which showed unemployment rose to 9.1 percent.
"The market is reacting to the economy are turning to a lower gear but also apparently influenced by indicators such as commodity prices and declining bond yields," said Sam Stovall of Standard and Poor `s.
"This is causing investors to wonder if global economic growth will run even more than just shifting into a lower gear, then it could indicate another recession."
Feelings of pain was increased on Tuesday when Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke told the audience that the weak housing sector holding back recovery and job creation is in a slump that "far from normal."
In the first public comments on the economy in nearly a month, he does not give clues that the Fed is ready to extend monetary stimulus programs 600 billion U.S. dollars since the end of this month.
Instead, he said, "The accommodative monetary policy is still needed," apparently a reference to keep interest rates at record lows today.
On Wednesday the news only got worse as the rating agency Fitch warned that the United States risks losing teratasnya credit rating if it fails to raise the upper limit (ceiling) to avoid default (fail) on the loan.
The third of three major rating agencies issued warnings, Fitch said the country needed to beat the deadline of August 2 to raise the loan ceiling of 14.29 billion U.S. dollars to avoid the highest-rated bonds lose their AAA.
It was a terrible week for bank stocks, with Bank of America lost 4.3 percent and Citigroup fell 4.8 percent from the value of its shares.
Energy shares rose briefly after OPEC agreed to maintain production quotas at the Vienna meeting, sending world oil prices rose sharply, but most oil stocks ended this week with a fall.
The Dow ended the week down 172.45 points to 11951.91. The Nasdaq fell 41.14 points to 2643.73. S & P fell to 1270.98 points, down 18.02 points. (A026/K004)
Editor: B Kunto Wibisono
