Dow sinks 334 points for worst day of year

Photo

Photo by: Associated Press

This Wednesday photo shows a Wall Street address carved into the side of a building in New York. The U.S. stock market had its worst day of the year Thursday, just 24 hours after recording its best.

Associated Press

NEW YORK

The stock market had its worst day of the year Thursday, just 24 hours after recording its best.

The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 334 points as falling energy stocks and worries about the global economy sent investors fleeing the market. The blue-chip index rose 275 points the day before.

For three years, U.S. investors have enjoyed a stock market that has, for the most part, quietly and steadily moved higher. The pleasure cruise appears to be over.

Market volatility is back and in a big way, market observers say. The stock market hasn’t seen day-to-day movements like this since August 2011, when Standard & Poor’s downgraded the United States’ credit rating. The S&P downgrade subsequently pushed the U.S. stock market into its last “correction,” a technical term for when stocks fall 10 percent or more from a recent peak.

“Investors are not conditioned for this type of market after three good years,” said Dean Junkans, chief investment officer for Wells Fargo Private Bank. “We’ve been long overdue for a correction.”

Words such as “correction,” “fear” and “volatility” might scare the average investor just trying to save for retirement. But investors who might be worried should remain calm, said Jurrien Timmer, director of global macro at Fidelity Investments. The S&P 500 index is still up 4.3 percent this year. And that follows the market’s 30 percent surge last year.

“Just stick to your long-term [retirement] plan,” Timmer said.

Thursday’s drop was the third-straight day investors have been taken on a wild roller coaster ride. On Tuesday, the Dow fell 272 points, only to jump by nearly the same amount Wednesday. Though 100-plus moves in the Dow have become more common as stocks have risen to record highs, 200-plus- point moves had been rare until this week. More than half of this year’s 200-point moves have happened in the past two weeks.