STOCKS GET CRUSHED: Here’s What You Need To Know

MYLES UDLAND

OCT. 8, 2014

REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

Stocks fell on Tuesday as each of the major stock indexes fell more than 1% as the IMF cut its global growth forecast for next year and consumer credit balances in the US grew less than expected in August.

First, the scoreboard:

• Dow: 16,718.3, -273.6, (-1.6%)
• S&P 500: 1,935.0, -29.8, (-1.5%)
• Nasdaq: 4,385.2, -69.6, (-1.5%)

And now, the top stories on Tuesday:

1. The latest Job Openings And Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report, showed that job openings grew to 4.84 million in August. This was better than the 4.7 million expected by economists and up from 4.67 million in July. Following the report, Ian Shepherdson at Pantheon Macro said, “In one line: Job openings are rocketing; wage pressures will follow.” In last Friday’s monthly jobs report, wages were flat month-over-month.

2. The latest report on consumer credit showed that consumer credit balances grew by $13.5 billion in August, less than the $20 billion that was expected and about half of the $26 billion expansion seen in July. Revolving credit balances, typically credit cards, fell by $200 million in August. 

3. The IMF issued its latest report on the global economy, cutting its growth expectations for 2015 to 3.8%. The IMF’s chief economist Olivier Blanchard identified three main risks to the global economy, including low interest rates, geopolitical risks, and a stalling of the euro area recovery.  

4. Markets were lower across the board on Tuesday, and the price of oil fell again, sliding more than 1% to around $89 a barrel. 

5. Shares of GT Advanced Technologies, the Apple sapphire supplier that on Monday filed for bankruptcy, at one point more than doubled and closed the day up more than 50%. The stock changed hands nearly 300 million times on Tuesday, almost triple the number of shares outstanding, as the move may have been largely due to stock traders trying to make a quick profit on any small rise or fall in the stock price. After trading near $11 early on Monday, GT Advanced shares closed near $1.35 on Tuesday.

6. Shares of hazmat suit maker Lakeland Industries gained more than 10% on Tuesday after the first case of Ebola contracted outside of West Africe was confirmed in Spain on Monday. Lakeland shares, which last week rose sharply after the first case of Ebola was confirmed in the US, were up as much as 20% at one point on Tuesday.

7. Chimerix gained more than 5% on Tuesday after officials at The Nebraska Medical Center’s Biocontainment Unit said that Chimerix’s drug brincidofovir would be used to treat an Ebola patient at the hospital. 

8. Another stock move related to news that Ebola had been contracted in Europ was the decline in a number of European travel companies, including the parent company of British Airways, Lufthansa, and Carnival Cruises. 

9. The Federal Reserve is set to wind down its monthly asset purchases at its policy meeting later this month, but market participants are starting to focus on inflation expectations, which have been steadily declining through the summer and could be indicated a need for the Fed to keep interest rates lower than some might expect. 

10. MBIA, the nation’s largest bond insurer, was the subject of a major data breach, according to a new report from Brian Krebs at Krebs on Security. “We have been notified that certain information related to clients of MBIA’s asset management subsidiary, Cutwater Asset Management, may have been illegally accessed,” MBIA spokesman Kevin Brown told Krebs. “We are conducting a thorough investigation and will take all measures necessary to protect our customers’ data, secure our systems, and preserve evidence for law enforcement.”