Equities Market Roundup: Wall Street Resumes Selling on Oil, Economy Drop

U.S. stocks are experiencing a significant sell-off in early trading today after the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it plans to release 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as part of a the International Energy Agency’s plans to release 60 million barrels of oils to the open market over the course of the next month. The plan is to help counteract any production disrupted from Libya. According to the Department of Energy, U.S. oil reserves are at a historically high level of 727 million barrels. The news pummeled crude prices, plummeting to $90 a barrel. Investors had already been uneasy by statements made by the Federal Reserve yesterday, as the outlook for U.S.’s economic growth was lowered and no new stimulus plans were announced. Other commodities like gold and silver have also taking a beating the last two days as well. A slew of economic data released today didn’t help matters much. New home sales fell 2.1 percent in May, though is still up 13.5 percent from a year ago. The U.S. Department of Labor also said that 9,000 more Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week.

Major U.S. Stock Indices

DJIA: 11,952.06 (-1.30 percent)
S&P 500: 1,271.92 (-1.18 percent)
NASDAQ: 2,658.39 (-0.40 percent)
Russell 2000: 791.39 (-1.06 percent)

In other news:

• More trouble for Google (GOOG) as the Federal Trade Commission is serving the web search giant civil subpoenas as part of an antitrust investigation. Shares of Google have fallen over 9 percent this month. [WSJ]
• Thus far, the potential U.S. fallout of a Greece debt default situation has been compared to that of Lehman Bros. and AIG (AIG). [NY Times]
• Economists don’t think the Fed will start another round of bond-buying stimulus, but Wall Street seems to differ. [NY Times, Bloomberg]
• Not only is the U.S. expected to lose the top spot in world trade to China by 2015, but a Citigroup (C) analyst believes India will slide into second by 2050, relegating the U.S. to third. [CNBC]
• Gold and silver are falling as more investors are moving into the U.S. dollar. Is this just a minor setback for precious metals or a bigger trend developing? [The Street]

Check back as more news develops.