Stocks plunged Thursday as mixed U.S. retail sales, pessimistic U.S. labor-market reports, and lower oil prices intensified concerns about a global economic slowdown. The worries overshadowed a better-than-expected sales report from Wal-Mart Stores and surprisingly strong readings on U.S. productivity and the services sector. While Wal-Mart and a few other U.S. retailers had a good month, shopping-mall clothing chains and high-end sellers suffered. In economic news, the number of Americans filing new jobless claims jumped unexpectedly last week. A separate report from payroll-services firm ADP showed that the private sector lost 33,000 jobs in August. The ADP report often reflects the broader government-issued monthly employment report, due Friday. Employers are expected to have slashed 75,000 non-farm jobs, after cutting 51,000 in July. The national unemployment figure is expected to hold steady at 5.7 percent. Other economic reports were more positive. U.S. productivity in the second quarter increased to a higher-than-expected 4.3 percent annual rate. Unit labor costs, the report's inflation component, showed a bigger-than-expected decline, suggesting that the increase in productivity has not increased wages, which would spark further inflation. The Institute for Supply Management's service-sector index showed expansion in the massive sector, in contrast to economists' expectation of a further contraction. Light sweet crude oil for October delivery fell $1.46 to $107.89 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, a five-month low. The U.S. dollar gained versus the euro and the yen. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 344.65, or 3 percent, to 11,188.23. It was the fourth-biggest one-day decline on a point basis this year and the third-worst day on a percentage basis. It was the 51st session in 2008 in which the index lost more than 100 points, making this year the worst for the Dow since 2002, when it declined by at least 100 points 67 times. Twenty-eight of the Dow's 30 components fell, led by heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar. Other big losers were financial firms Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, American Express, and AIG. Aerospace companies Boeing and United Technologies, automaker General Motors, and telecommunications giant Verizon all lost about 4 percent. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 42.15, or 3.3 percent, to 1,232.83. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 74.69, or 3.2 percent, to 2,259.04. Losers included Cisco, Oracle, Intel, Yahoo, Amazon.com, and Google. The New York Stock Exchange composite index fell 261.00 to 8,008.25. The American Stock Exchange composite index fell 54.00 to 1,934.42. And the Russell 2000 index fell 23.29 to 718.62.
