Wall Street continues sell-offs amid global growth fears

NEW YORK (Xinhua) - US stocks extended heavy selling Friday, with the Nasdaq Composite Index falling to its lowest in four months.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 115.15 points, or 0.69 percent, to 16,544.10. The S&P 500 tumbled 22.08 points, or 1.15 percent, to 1,906.13. The Nasdaq Composite Index plummeted 102.10 points, or 2.33 percent, to 4,276.24.

The market continued to be under selling pressure amid global growth woes which had the S&P 500 suffer its worst decline since April in the prior session.

European shares took a pound Friday, with benchmark stock indices slumping over 1 percent, as a string of poor German data released recently suggested the Europe's largest economy was losing momentum and raised concerns for the eurozone economy at large.

Following suits, the US equity market opened lower and then posted a volatile morning session, with the tech-rich Nasdaq underperforming the other two indices, as semiconductor sector sank across the board after Microchip Technology lowered its expectations of net sales for its second quarter of fiscal 2015.

The chip maker also warned that another industry correction has begun and that this correction will be seen more broadly across the industry in the near future. In response, the company's shares tumbled 12.26 percent to $39.96 apiece.

Wall Street accelerated losses in the late afternoon session after Standard & Poor's revised its outlook on France to negative from stable, which ignited further shorting on stocks.

Market volatility picked up in October, which was historically the wildest month for stocks, with the CBOE Volatility Index, often referred to as Wall Street's fear gauge, jumping to the highest level since December 2012.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq capped the biggest weekly losses since May 2012, down 3.1 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively. For the week, the blue-chip Dow dropped 2.7 percent.

On the economic front, prices for US imports fell 0.5 percent in September, led by falling fuel prices, the US Labor Department reported Friday. The price index for US exports also declined in September, decreasing 0.2 percent.

In other markets, the US dollar advanced for a second session, retracing losses caused by minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest meeting which showed that officials were concerned the global economic slowdown and a stronger dollar could hurt the US economy.

In late New York trading, the euro decreased to $1.2615 from $1.2688 in the previous session. The greenback bought 107.84 Japanese yen, higher than 107.79 yen of the previous session.

Crude prices stabilized Friday. Light, sweet crude for November delivery moved up 5 cents to settle at $85.82 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for November delivery gained 16 cents to close at $90.21 a barrel.

Crude market suffered another big weekly loss amid concerns over surplus supplies. This week, the prices of US crude and Brent crude dropped 4.4 percent and 2.3 percent respectively.

Gold futures on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange dropped Friday on a stronger dollar.

The most active gold contract for December delivery dipped $3.6, or 0.29 percent, to $1,221.7 per ounce. Gold ended the week with a 2.4-percent gain, the first weekly gain in six weeks.