Stocks began the session in negative territory and remained there throughout the entire session. The early weakness was attributed to oil prices, which were down early and never recovered during the day. The losses of more than 5% brings the loss over the past two days to more than 10%, pushing WTI crude back below $30 a barrel and squashing equities in the process. Any hope that oil prices would de-couple from stock prices will have to wait another day as the two continue to move in lockstep with each other. Even a solid earnings report from tech bellwether Alphabet (GOOG) could not help the market.
ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., the economic calendar was quiet. In Europe, statistics agency Eurostat reported that unemployment across the eurozone decreased by 49,000 to a total of 16.75M in December dropping the unemployment rate to its lowest since September 2011 at 10.4%. In central bank news, the Reserve Bank of Australia and Reserve Bank of India both held their benchmark interest rates steady, as expected.
COMPANY NEWS: Class A shares of Alphabet (GOOGL) advanced 1.3% to $780.91 after its better than expected quarterly results were followed by analysts around Wall Street hiking their price targets for shares, including Deutsche Bank analyst Ross Sandler, who raised his target on the parent of Google to $1,080 from $900.
Exxon Mobil (XOM) reported better than expected revenue and profits in the fourth quarter, but its shares slid 2.2% to $74.61 amid the renewed weakness in oil prices. Shares of fellow oil major BP (BP) plunged 8.5% to $29.02 in New York trading after reporting a steep quarterly loss, largely due to $2.6B in charges related to impairments of Upstream assets as well as restructuring.
Ford (F) shares fell 4.6% after the company reporting that its U.S. sales declined 3% last month versus a year ago. Peer General Motors (GM) slid 1.5% after reporting that its U.S. sales grew 0.5% in January.
Dow Chemical (DOW) jumped 5.75% to $45.03 after posting better than expected earnings and revenue. Of note, Dow CEO Andrew Liveris said he plans to transition out of the company when it completes its planned merger with DuPont (DD).
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