Friday's early afternoon trade: Wall Street sinks for fifth day in six

Wall Street's main indexes fell more than 1 percent in early afternoon trading on Friday, deepening losses in the past week that have put all three main US markets in correction territory. The technology-heavy Nasdaq index was the latest to rack up cumulative falls of more than 10 percent from its peak - the technical definition of when a market is correcting. By 12:54 pm ET it was down 1.7 percent on the day and 11.1 percent since highs hit on January 26.
More than $2.5 trillion in value has been knocked off S&P 500 shares since then, adding to the sense that the tide may be changing after nine years of almost constant gains for Wall Street. "I thought we were close to a bottom a couple of days ago, but it looks we're in the standard path, which is a selloff, a rebound and then a retest of the low," said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham.
"I'd like to see buying come in late in the day instead of having a selloff like we had yesterday." The Dow Jones industrial average was down 344.97 points, or 1.45 percent, at 23,515.49, the S&P 500 down 32.27 points, or 1.25 percent, at 2,548.73. The S&P 500 has lost 7.7 percent this week alone, its worst weekly performance since the peak of financial crisis in 2008.
Utilities was the only slight gainer among the 11 major S&P indexes, while consumer discretionary stocks led the decliners. As on other days this week, the losses followed some initial gains, raising the market's main gauge of volatility, the CBOE Volatility Index to 36.13 points, three times what it was a week ago.