January Closes As the Worst Month For Stocks in Nearly Two Years

January 31, 2014

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2 min read

The continuing emerging markets sell-off, along with a slew of disappointing corporate earnings statements sent stocks lower by Friday’s closing bell, making January the worst month for Wall Street in almost two years.

The Numbers:

Standard & Poor’s 500: -0.65 percent to 1,782.59
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.94 percent to 15,698.85
Nasdaq: -0.47 percent to 4,103.88

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On the Dow:

Earnings season took its toll on the Dow, with oil giant Chevron (CVX) dropping over 4 percent by the close after revealing a 32 percent drop in profits during the recently-ended period. ExxonMobil (XOM) was off about 2 percent, as its own earnings statement released earlier in the week reflected a very similar scenario to that of its colleague.

On the S&P 500:

Toy giant Mattel (MAT) and online bookseller-cum-tech deity Amazon.com (AMZN) led the S&P down in spectacular fashiong on losses of 12 and 11 percent respectively. Meanwhile, Yahoo! (YHOO) rebounded slightly from a string of down days, closing on a 2 percent gain. Facebok (FB) added nearly 2.5 percent, as did Microsoft (MSFT) as the company indicated earlier in the day that the search for a new CEO would soon be over.

On the Nasdaq:

Zynga (ZNGA) was an unexpected surprise on the day, as the stock jumped over 23 percent by the bell after announcing the purchase of mobile gaming company NaturalMotion. Hardware makers JDS Uniphase ($JDS) and Broadcom Corp. (BRCM) were up significantly, while major chemical manufacturer Cereplast (CERP) was off nearly 13 percent.

Michael Teague

Michael Teague is a staff writer for Equities.com. His previous experience includes three years as the associate editor of Los Angeles-based Al Jadid Magazine, a bi-annual review of the arts & culture of the Middle East, where he contributed many articles on the region in the form of features and book & film reviews. His educational background includes a BA in French literature from the University of California, Irvine, where he developed a startling proclivity for anything having to do with the 19th century.