NEW YORK: US stocks opened sharply lower Monday after ratings agency Standard & Poor's issued a warning on US sovereign debt, citing Washington's looming debt and fiscal deficits.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 183.68 points (1.49 percent) to 12,158.15 in the first three minutes of trade, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 42.06 points (1.52 percent) to 2,722.59.
The broad-market S&P 500-stock index shed 19.42 points (1.47 percent) at 1,300.26.
Shortly before the market open, Standard & Poor's revised its outlook on US sovereign debt to "negative" from "stable," but S&P said the United States had until 2013 to come up with a credible plan for addressing its financial problems.
"Because the US has, relative to its 'AAA' peers, what we consider to be very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is not clear to us, we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable," S&P said in a statement.
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