NEW YORK: A new plunge in the price of oil sent US stocks tumbling Wednesday, as shares in big energy companies pulled the major indexes down.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 130.33 points (1.02 percent) to finish at 12,630.03.
The broader S&P 500 index lost 15.08 (1.11 percent) at 1,342.08, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 26.83 points (0.93 percent) to 2,845.06.
Shares in the big oil companies were off by two percent or more after oil prices fell some 5.5 percent, driven by data that suggested slowing demand in the United States and China, and the dollar's sharp rise in Wednesday trade.
Also contributing to the sell-off was a rare, short-lived halt in trading of oil and oil products futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange after gasoline prices hit their daily low limit.
Sharp drops in other commodities including farm and precious metals also stoked the rout.
Chevron was off 2.0 percent, ExxonMobil lost 2.1 percent, and ConocoPhillips fell 2.8 percent.
Big miners also sank: Freeport McMoran dropped 5.6 percent and Southern Copper lost 3.2 percent.
Dow component Walt Disney lost 5.4 percent on disappointing quarterly earnings; Caterpillar pared 2.6 percent.
Yahoo! led a general fall in tech shares, losing 7.3 percent after it reported a restructuring in China's Alibaba Group in which Yahoo holds 43 percent that investors took as a negative.
Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped to 3.16 percent from 3.22 percent late Wednesday, while that on the 30-year bond dropped to 4.30 percent from 4.35 percent.
Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
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