Friday's early afternoon trade: Oil drop, global growth worries keep indexes down

A sharp drop in oil prices and global growth worries sent jitters through Wall Street, leading the three major US indexes lower for the second straight day in volatile trading on Friday. After three days of gains, losses in the past two sessions have pushed the Nasdaq into the red for the week, while the S&P 500 and the Dow are roughly flat.
Oil prices fell 2.5 percent as traders booked profits after a rally earlier this week pushed prices to their highest in 2016, and as the dollar regained lost ground.
Financial stocks came under pressure again as global issues, including uncertainty over interest rate hikes and the impending vote on Britain's membership in the European Union, sent investors flocking to safe haven assets. The yield on government bonds fell globally, to record lows in some cases. Gold, another safe haven, hit a fresh three-week high. "The US indexes are trailing what is happening overseas this morning. We've seen a decline in crude prices and strength in US treasuries and that combination adds ups to a red day," said Paul Springmeyer, investment management director at US Bank Wealth Managing in Minneapolis.
"There still remains quite a bit of uncertainty out there ... and returns will be fairly muted until those question marks are resolved." At 12:49 am ET (1649 GMT) the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 100.67 points, or 0.56 percent, at 17,884.52. The S&P 500 was down 16.78 points, or 0.79 percent, at 2,098.7. The index has not closed below 2,100, a key technical level, so far this week. The Nasdaq Composite was down 50.35 points, or 1.02 percent, at 4,908.27.
The CBOE Volatility Index, known as Wall Street's fear gauge, jumped 11.5 percent, its steepest rise in two months. Nine of the 10 S&P sectors were lower, with the energy index's 1.1 percent fall. Financials are now down 3.1 percent for the year, with healthcare the only other index in the red year-to-date.