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U.S. stocks tumble amid global selloff, oil slide

Xinhua, January 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks traded lower for a second straight day on Thursday, amid global markets rout and a continued decline in oil prices.

By noon, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 158.79 points, or 0.94 percent, to 16,747.72. The S&P 500 shed 20.49 points, or 1.03 percent, to 1,969.77. The Nasdaq Composite Index plunged 67.90 points, or 1.40 percent, to 4,767.87.

Trading on the Shanghai and Shenzhen bourses stopped early on Thursday after shares tumbled 7 percent within the first 30 minutes of trading, triggering the circuit breaker mechanism.

Tokyo shares ended the trading Thursday sharply lower with its benchmark Nikkei stocks index declining below the 18,000 line, as sentiment here was hit by weak performance in China's equity market and the yen's advance against the U.S. dollars.

Meanwhile, investors continued to focus on weak oil prices amid rising tensions in the Middle East, as crude prices had witnessed big swings recently and traded near multi-year lows.

Oil prices hit their lowest level in more than 11 years Wednesday as U.S. crude output of last week increased unexpectedly, which in turn dampened market sentiment.

On the economic front, in the week ending Jan. 2, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 277,000, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week's unrevised level, the U.S. Department announced Thursday.

Traders were looking to the key December employment data, the first jobs report since the U.S. Federal Reserve's mid-December decision to raise its interest rates.

According to the minutes released Wednesday from Fed's December meeting, the central bank decided to raise rates for the first time in nearly a decade, though some officials expressed concerns about lingering low inflation and the stifling effects on the U.S. economy of a strong U.S. dollar and slow growth overseas.

Fed members expected economic conditions would evolve in a manner that would warrant only gradual increases in the federal funds rate, said the minutes. Enditem