Nasdaq, Dow Jones Industrial Average | featured news

A weaker forecast of economic growth in Asia is sending stocks lower in early trading on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average is down 47 points at 13,563 shortly after the opening bell Monday morning. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell seven points to 1,454 and the Nasdaq composite gave up 22 points to 3,113.

Gloomy economic readings from three continents sent stocks skidding and spurred a bearish recommendation from Goldman Sachs, compounding losses in major benchmarks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 166 points, or 1.3%, to 12658 in afternoon trading on Thursday. The Standard & Poor's 500 fell 21 points, or 1.5%, to 1334. The Nasdaq Composite ticked down 52 points, or 1.8%, to 2878, on course to snap a five-session streak of gains.

Stocks are pulling back sharply on Wall Street as investors get their first chance to react to a slowdown in hiring in the United States in March. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 152 points to 12,908 shortly before noon Monday. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was off 18 at 1,380, and the Nasdaq composite lost 36 points to 3,044.

Stocks are edging higher following a four-week losing streak. The Dow Jones industrial average is up 23 points, or 0.2 percent, to 10,844 in midday trading Monday. It had been up as many as 203 points. The Dow fell 4 percent last week as worries deepened that the U.S. could slip into a recession. The S&P 500 rose less than a point to 1,124. The Nasdaq was up less than a point at 2,342.

Investors fled Wall Street in the worst stock-market selloff since the middle of the financial crisis in early 2009 in what has turned into a full-fledged correction. The Dow and the S&P tumbled more than 4 percent on Thursday and the Nasdaq lost 5 percent on fear the United States is staring at another recession and that Europe's sovereign debt crisis is swallowing two of its largest economies.

Caterpillar drove the Dow Jones industrial average higher Friday after the company reported a huge gain in first-quarter earnings. The world's largest maker of mining and construction equipment rose 2.5 percent after its earnings increased more than five-fold. The company also raised its sales and profit forecast for the year.