Soaring oil prices and weak earnings scared more Wall Street investors out of stocks yesterday for yet another losing session. Investors poured cash into the safety of bonds for the third day in a row, sending prices jumping.
War fears in the Mideast – combined with high consumption of heating oil because of cold weather – sent oil prices to the highest level in more than a decade.
The Department of Energy said supplies of heating oil in the frigid week that ended Friday fell 3.9 million barrels to 36.1 million barrels, a dangerous 33 percent deficit from a year ago.
The news pushed U.S. light crude to a new post-Gulf War high of $38.08 a barrel in after-hours trading – and within reach of the all-time high of $41.15 hit in October 1990.
Investors were also spooked by lackluster sales of Hewlett-Packard.
“It’s the double whammy,” said trader David Memmott at Morgan Stanley.
Hewlett-Packard tumbled $2.81 to $15.37, the second-most-active stock on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 102.52, or 1.3 percent, to 7,806.98. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index dropped 11.02, or 1.31 percent, to 827.55 while the Nasdaq lost 25.30, or 1.9 percent, to 1,303.68.