Wall Street was lower in morning trading, with the Dow shedding about 200 points, on "quadruple witching" Friday as crude prices headed for their third straight weekly loss. Volatility was slightly higher than usual on account of "quadruple witching," the expiry of options on stocks and indexes as well as futures on indexes and single stocks.
Still, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were set for their best weekly performance in a month, helped by gains before the Federal Reserve's interest rate hike on Wednesday. "I look at it as purely a sentiment-driven market. There's no new news that's any kind of substance that's driving this," said Jeff Powell, managing partner of Polaris Wealth Advisors in California.
At 11:02 am ET (1602 GMT), the Dow Jones industrial average was down 201.6 points, or 1.15 percent, at 17,294.24, the S&P 500 was down 17.99 points, or 0.88 percent, at 2,023.9 and the Nasdaq Composite index was down 30.87 points, or 0.62 percent, at 4,971.68. Nine of the 10 major S&P sectors were lower, led by the interest rate-sensitive utilities sector's 1.78 percent fall. Boeing's 3 percent fall weighed the most on the Dow, while Microsoft weighed on the S&P and Nasdaq with a 1.1 percent decline. Disney was down 2.9 percent at $108.79, after BTIG downgraded the stock to sell. Among the bright spots, Darden Restaurants was up 6 percent at $61.91 after the Olive Garden restaurant chain owner raised its full-year profit forecast.
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