Plummeting oil futures dragged US markets down as stocks closed at a dip on Monday, with the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq all finishing at a loss.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 550 points on Monday, a drop of 2.3 percent, while the S&P 500 declined 1.6 percent. The Nasdaq lost 0.8 percent as of the close. Heralding the decline was a precipitous drop in West Texas Intermediate oil futures, which lost over 100 percent of their value, finishing at -$37.63 per barrel in value – a record low for the commodity.
Led by the decline in oil futures, energy stocks were down in general – Chevron and Exxon Mobil lost over 4 percent each – and the energy and utilities sectors both lost over 3 percent on the S&P 500, constituting its worst-performing industries.
