Stocks dragged down at midday as oil prices slips again
A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 9, 2014, as energy stocks dragged down the indexes most of the day. Credit: Getty Images / Andrew Burton
Energy stocks are weighing down market indexes for a second day Wednesday as the price of crude oil plunges again.
At midday on Wall Street, The Dow was down 138.5 points, or 0.8 percent, at 17,663.4. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 13.5 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,046.3. The Nasdaq composite lost 20.5 points, or 0.4 percent, to 4,746.2.
Chevron and Exxon Mobil fell the most of the 30 stocks in the Dow Jones industrial average in midday trading Wednesday. Each stock fell about 3 percent.
The price of crude oil sank $3.15, or 5 percent, to $60.68 a barrel in New York.
Oil dropped on reports that OPEC had slashed its estimate of how much crude it will need to produce next year due to rising supplies from other producers.
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