Tag Archives: Global Economy

Oil reaches lowest price since 2003 as Iran sanctions lifted

(Reuters) – Oil prices slumped to a 2003 low below $28 per barrel on Monday as the market anticipated a rise in Iranian exports after the lifting of sanctions against Tehran over the weekend.

Responding to Tehran’s compliance with a nuclear deal, the United States and major powers revoked international sanctions that had cut Iran’s oil exports by about 2 million barrels per day (bpd) since their pre-sanctions 2011 peak to little more than 1 million bpd.

Iran, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), issued an order on Monday to increase production by 500,000 bpd, the country’s deputy oil minister said.

Worries about Iran’s return to an already oversupplied oil market drove down Brent crude to $27.67 a barrel early on Monday, its lowest since 2003. The benchmark was down 29 cents at $28.64 by 1:50 p.m. ET.

U.S. crude was down 48 cents at $28.94 a barrel, not far from a 2003 low of $28.36 hit earlier in the session. Trading volumes were thin with U.S. markets closed for the Martin Luther King Day holiday.

“You can’t say this was unexpected but the Iran news is an additional factor that’s working against oil prices,” said TD Securities analyst Bart Melek, who also pointed to global oversupply and concerns about demand from China.

He said oil could fall further if Chinese economic data released overnight, including GDP and retail sales data, points to more weakness in the economy.

“If we get nasty economic numbers from China there’s potential for another swoosh lower,” Melek said.

Analysts expect Iran will realistically be able to export an extra 500,000 bpd in the short term from storage, but there are doubts whether the state of Iran’s oil infrastructure will allow further boosts anytime soon.

SEB Markets assumes Iranian oil output will rise by 400,000 bpd to 3.2 million bpd in 2016, while Tehran has said it will add 1 million bpd to its existing output by the year-end.

Iran has at least a dozen Very Large Crude Carrier super-tankers filled and in place to sell into the market.

In a sign of the pain low prices are inflicting on oil producers, OPEC forecast that supply outside the organization would decline by 660,000 bpd in 2016, led by the United States. Last month OPEC predicted a drop of 380,000 bpd.

(Additional reporting by Ahmad Ghadder in London, Roslan Khasawneh and Henning Gloystein in Singapore and Osamu Tsukimori in Tokyo; Editing by David Goodman, Dale Hudson and Frances Kerry)

Wall Street hemorrhages as oil plunges and China fears deepen

(Reuters) – Wall Street bled on Friday, with the S&P 500 sinking to its lowest level since October 2014 as oil prices sank below $30 per barrel and fears grew about economic trouble in China.

Pain was dealt widely, with the day’s trading volume unusually high and more than a fifth of S&P 500 stocks touching 52-week lows. The major S&P sectors all ended sharply lower. The Russell 2000 small-cap index dropped as much as 3.5 percent to its lowest level since July 2013.

The energy sector dropped 2.87 percent as oil prices fell 6.5 percent, in part due to fears of slow economic growth in China, where major stock indexes also slumped overnight. The energy sector has lost nearly half of its value after hitting record highs in late 2014.

“Initially when oil was down, the convenient line was ‘Well, it’s good for the other nine sectors,” said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “That tune has changed. Now, it’s a contagion to the other nine sectors. It’s a contagion to Main Street and Wall Street.”

The technology sector was the day’s biggest loser, sliding 3.15 percent as weak quarterly results from chipmaker Intel weighed heavily on chip stocks.

The S&P 500 has fallen about 12 percent from its high in May, pushing it into what is generally considered “correction territory.”

China’s major stock indexes shed over 3 percent, raising questions about Beijing’s ability to halt a sell-off that has now reached 18 percent since the beginning of the year.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 2.39 percent to end at 15,988.08 points and the S&P 500 fell 2.16 percent to 1,880.29.

The Nasdaq Composite lost 2.74 percent to 4,488.42.

For the week, the Dow fell 2.2 percent, the S&P 500 lost 2.2 percent and the Nasdaq dropped 3.3 percent.

During Friday’s session, the CBOE volatility index, Wall Street’s fear gauge, jumped as much as 29.2 percent to 30.95, its highest level since September.

“Investors are scared to death, and the fact that it’s happening at the beginning of the year has some historical significance,” said Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors in New York.

U.S. economic data on Friday was not very encouraging either, with an unexpected drop in retail sales and industrial output declining again in December, underscoring a worsening outlook for fourth-quarter economic growth.

Dow components Exxon and Chevron were down more than 1 percent, while Caterpillar dropped 2.65 percent.

Intel tumbled 9.1 percent, its steepest drop in seven years, after the chipmaker’s results and forecast raised concerns about its growth.

Citigroup fell 6.41 percent, while Wells Fargo dropped 3.59 percent after both reported largely in-line quarterly earnings.

Wynn Resorts was the among the few bright spots, surging 13.34 percent after reporting in-line quarterly revenue.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 2,591 to 529. On the Nasdaq, 2,377 issues fell and 502 rose.

The S&P 500 index showed no new 52-week highs and 135 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded five new highs and 511 lows.

About 10.8 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, well above the 7.6 billion daily average for the past 20 trading days, according to Thomson Reuters data.

(Additional reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar and Tanya Agrawal in Bengaluru and Dion Rabouin and David Randall in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Chizu Nomiyama)

Wal-Mart shutting 269 stores, including 154 in U.S.

(Reuters) – Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Friday that it would pull the plug on its smallest store format, Walmart Express, and close 269 locations as it contends with higher costs in its home market of the United States and disappointing results overseas.

The move includes Wal-Mart’s largest-ever single culling in the United States, where the company is closing 154 stores. The other 115 stores are in Latin America, including 60 in Brazil.

The world’s largest retailer said it hoped to transfer many of the 10,000 U.S. and 6,000 Latin American workers in the closed stores to other locations.

Wal-Mart’s earnings have been under pressure due to last year’s decision to raise entry-level wages as well as higher investments aimed at closing the gap online with Amazon.com Inc. At the same time, Wal-Mart is struggling overseas, where a strong U.S. dollar reduces the value of local sales.

The closings come three months after Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon disclosed plans to review global operations and shut underperforming stores. Friday’s announcement marks the first step in that restructuring effort.

Wal-Mart said the closures represented less than 1 percent of its global revenue. The biggest cuts are in the United States, including all 102 Walmart Express stores.

At 12,000 to 15,000 square feet, Express stores are less than one-tenth the size of a typical Walmart Supercenter. The format had been in pilot since 2011 but did not deliver the desired results.

Moody’s retail analyst Charlie O’Shea described the closures as a long-overdue “pruning.”

“I’ve always wondered why it’s taken so long to cull the U.S. store base because they really haven’t done much of it over the past several years,” O’Shea said.

Wal-Mart said the move would reduce earnings by 20 cents to 22 cents a diluted share, with nearly all of that to be booked in the fourth quarter ending this month. In November, it forecast a full-year profit of $4.50 to $4.65.

The company’s shares fell 2.6 percent to $61.39.

The other 52 U.S. stores to be closed are a mixture of Supercenters, Wal-Mart’s largest format; discount stores; Neighborhood Market groceries; and outlets in the company’s Sam’s Club bulk-selling wholesale chain.

The closings highlight the challenges Wal-Mart faces in finding growth opportunities in both its home market, which it has blanketed with some 4,500 stores, and overseas, where it has grown to more than 6,000 locations but has struggled to generate consistent returns.

In an internal memo to staff, McMillon said a regular review of the company’s assets was vital for growth. “Doing this ensures we focus and align our resources in ways that build a strong company positioned to win in the future,” said the memo, which was seen by Reuters.

The Arkansas-based retailer said it would still open 142 to 165 stores in the United States in the year ending in January 2017. For the first time, it also disclosed plans to open 200 to 240 stores overseas in the coming year.

The company said about 95 percent of the closed U.S. stores were within 10 miles of another that it owns, making it possible to move some workers to other locations. It said it would provide 60 days of pay and severance for eligible workers not placed.

The cuts drew criticism from a group backed by the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union, which for years has been behind a campaign pushing for better wages and benefits for Wal-Mart employees.

“Sadly, these latest store closings could very well be just the beginning,” Jess Levin, communications director at Making Change at Walmart, said in an emailed statement. “This sends a chilling message to the company’s hard-working employees that they could be next.”

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Chicago; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Bounce in oil prices lifts energy shares, U.S. stocks

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The energy sector led the beaten-up U.S. stock market higher on Thursday as oil prices rebounded from 12-year lows.

Major U.S. indexes climbed about 2 percent after dropping to 3-1/2 month lows on Wednesday. Gains in stocks and oil also helped push the U.S. dollar higher, while the increases in risk assets reduced demand for safe-haven gold and U.S. government debt.

Equity markets have tumbled to start the year as volatility in Chinese shares and the persistent slide in oil made investors jittery about the health of the global economy.

“Oil has been able to hold the gains, and I think that has just given a little confidence for people to come back into the market today,” said Maury Fertig, chief investment officer at Relative Value Partners in Northbrook, Illinois.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 227.64 points, or 1.41 percent, to 16,379.05, the S&P 500 gained 31.56 points, or 1.67 percent, to 1,921.84 and the Nasdaq Composite added 88.94 points, or 1.97 percent, to 4,615.00.

The U.S. energy group surged 4.5 percent, leading all sectors.

Investors were also encouraged by comments from St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard, who said the oil rout has caused a “worrisome” drop in U.S. inflation expectations that may make further rate hikes hard to justify.

The Fed will raise interest rates three times this year, a Reuters poll of economists found.

Better-than-expected results from JP Morgan gave a boost to what is expected to be a dour U.S. corporate earnings season.

“You have perhaps the biggest financial bank stock that came out, and they had pretty good results, so that may have quieted down some concerns,” said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana.

January’s deep losses may have primed the stock market for a rebound but rallies have tended to fizzle at the start of 2016. On Thursday, too, stocks ended well off their highs.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index dropped 1.5 percent, hurt by a slump in the auto sector as Renault faced an emissions probe, but the index came off its 13-month lows.

MSCI’s broadest gauge of stocks globally rose 0.3 percent.

Benchmark Brent oil snapped an eight-day rout as some players covered short positions after crude prices plumbed new 12-year lows on worries that Iran may add its barrels to a glutted global market sooner than expected.

With options for U.S. crude’s front-month February futures expiring, traders were covering short positions.

“Natural covering interest is buoying the market as many had $30 as an objective,” said Pete Donovan, broker at Liquidity Energy in New York.

U.S. crude prices settled up 2.4 percent at $31.20 a barrel, while Brent crude settled up 2.4 percent at $31.03 a barrel.

The dollar rose, bolstered by gains in the U.S. stock market and a rebound in oil prices, suggesting that the Federal Reserve will not be as constrained to push ahead with its plan to raise interest rates several times this year.

The U.S. dollar rose 0.1 percent against a basket of currencies, while the euro fell 0.1 percent against the dollar.

Prices on U.S. Treasuries fell as oil prices steadied. Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes fell 8/32 in price to yield 2.0926 percent, from 2.066 late on Wednesday.

Spot gold fell 1.4 percent as the oil price rebound and rise in U.S. shares blunted bullion’s appeal as a haven.

(Additional reporting by Tariro Mzezewa, Barani Krishnan and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York, Ankur Banerjee and Abhiram Nandakumar in Bengaluru, Marc Jones in London, Lisa Twaronite in Tokyo; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Raissa Kasolowsky and Nick Zieminski)

Wall Street selloff continues, S&P 500 falls to lowest level in months

(Reuters) – U.S. stocks sank on Wednesday, pushing the S&P 500 to end below 1,900 for the first time since September and extending the year’s sharp selloff, on nervousness over tumbling oil prices and U.S. earnings.

Stocks started the day higher but sentiment turned negative in afternoon trading as a brief rally in beaten-down oil prices stalled.

All 10 S&P 500 sectors ended in the red, with decliners outpacing advancing issues on the NYSE by a ratio of 7.64 to 1 and by 6.35 to 1 on the Nasdaq.

“We’ve been in capital preservation mode since the year began and as the market has shown an inability to rally with any conviction, that’s only increased the level of nervousness and that seemed to have spilled over today in a very significant way,” said Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles.

The declines ended a two-day rebound for the S&P 500 and resumed the steep selloff that began at the start of the year amid concerns about a slowdown in China and global growth.

The S&P 500 is now down 11.3 percent from its May 21 closing lifetime high, while the Russell 2000 small-cap index dropped 3.3 percent, putting it in bear market territory. The Russell index is down 22 percent from its June 2015 record close.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 364.81 points, or 2.21 percent, to 16,151.41, the S&P 500 had lost 48.4 points, or 2.5 percent, to 1,890.28 and the Nasdaq Composite had dropped 159.85 points, or 3.41 percent, to 4,526.07.

The CBOE Volatility index, Wall Street’s favorite gauge of uncertainty, gained 12.2 percent.

The market has put together 10 intraday rallies at the outset of 2016, and every single one has failed to sustain itself.

Analysts said nervousness about fourth-quarter earnings added to the bearish tone. CSX was down 5.7 percent at $22.35 after the railroad company’s fourth-quarter profit fell on declining freight volumes.

“Today we gapped open again and the buyers retreated. There’s no catalyst to really take it higher. If you start getting bank and other earnings that are really bad, nothing is going to hold,” said Ken Polcari, director of the NYSE floor division at O’Neil Securities in New York.

Amazon fell 5.8 percent to $581.81 and was among the biggest drags on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq.

About 9.8 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, compared with the 7.5 billion daily average for the past 20 trading days, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The S&P 500 posted 2 new 52-week highs and 108 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 7 new highs and 510 new lows.

(Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Meredith Mazzilli)

Wall Street closes strong; oil briefly dips below $30

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. and European stock investors bought beaten-down shares on Tuesday, at least temporarily looking past another steep drop in oil prices that briefly sent U.S. crude below $30 a barrel.

Major U.S. stock indexes finished strong in a volatile trading session. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index climbed 1.1 percent after four sessions of declines.

Volatile Chinese markets and the deepening oil slide have shaken sentiment in equities at the start of 2016. China stocks closed higher on Tuesday as the central bank tried to stabilize the yuan.

But oil prices slumped more than 2 percent, failing to sustain an initial rally and deepening a 1-1/2-year slide.

Tuesday’s rally may indicate that equity investors are setting aside oil and China as the main factors driving share prices, said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer at North Star Investment Management Corp in Chicago.

“As the focus becomes more on the upcoming earnings … the focus turns away from China and oil, it allows investors to redeploy their assets into some equities that look reasonable,” Kuby said.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 117.65 points, or 0.72 percent, to 16,516.22, the S&P 500 gained 15.01 points, or 0.78 percent, to 1,938.68 and the Nasdaq Composite added 47.93 points, or 1.03 percent, to 4,685.92.

Shares of Apple rose 1.5 percent after a broker upgrade, helping prop up Wall Street equities. After historically poor starts to the year for major U.S. indexes, investors were awaiting corporate earnings season to start in earnest later in the week, with large banks due to report.

“We saw a big decline in American markets,” Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial in Waltham, Massachusetts. “Now, we have seen it be pretty much stable. I think at this point perhaps we stabilize unless we see another down leg from China.”

In Europe, solid corporate updates from retailers boosted shares.

MSCI’s broadest gauge of stocks globally rose 0.3 percent after eight straight down sessions.

U.S. crude prices fell as low as $29.93 before settling down 3.1 percent at $30.44 a barrel. Benchmark Brent settled down 2.2 percent at $30.86 a barrel. U.S. crude prices have fallen 17 percent in 2016 alone.

Oil has been dragged lower by a glut, China’s weakening economy and stock market turmoil, as well as the strong dollar, which makes it more expensive for those using other currencies to buy oil.

“The momentum is too strong to the bearish side, even if fundamentally nothing has changed,” said Dominick Chirichella, a senior partner at Energy Management Institute.

The U.S. dollar rose for a third straight session as gains on Wall Street and calmer financial markets enhanced appetite for currencies that offer higher yield.

The dollar rose 0.3 percent against a basket of currencies. The euro slipped 0.06 percent against the dollar.

U.S. Treasury prices rose in choppy trading as oil prices resumed their decline, increasing appetite for safe-haven U.S. government debt.

Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes rose 13/32 in price to yield 2.112 percent, from 2.158 percent late on Monday.

Spot gold dropped 0.4 percent, falling for a third straight session, but the safe-haven metal pared earlier losses.

(Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss, Tariro Mzezewa and Catherine Ngai in New York, Jamie McGeever and Simon Falush in London; Editing by Catherine Evans and Nick Zieminski)

BP to slash thousands more jobs in face of oil downturn

LONDON (Reuters) – British oil and gas company BP announced plans on Tuesday to slash 5 percent of its global workforce in the face of a continued slump in oil prices.

It said it aims to reduce its global oil production, or upstream, headcount by 4,000 to 20,000 as it undergoes a $3.5 billion restructuring program. BP said its headcount totaled around 80,000 at the end of 2015.

With crude oil prices at 12-year lows of around $32 a barrel, the world’s biggest oil and gas producers are set to continue aggressively slashing spending this year as they face their longest period of investment cuts in decades.

“We want to simplify (our) structure and reduce costs without compromising safety. Globally, we expect the headcount in upstream to be below 20,000 by the end of the year,” a company spokesman said.

In the North Sea, he said BP planned to reduce headcount by 600 people over the next two years with most cuts likely in 2016.

BP shares, which have fallen by around 40 percent since the oil price began to slide in mid-2014, were up 1.2 percent at 1157 GMT compared with a 0.8 percent rise for the broader sector index.

Oil companies including Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron have already slashed tens of thousands jobs globally to deal with a near 75 percent drop in oil prices since June 2014 that has seen earnings collapse.

BP, which must also pay $20 billion in fines to resolve the deadly 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill, announced in October plans for a third round of spending cuts and said it would limit capital spending, or capex, to $17-19 billion a year through to 2017.

The company, which has already sold over $50 billion of assets in recent years in order to cover the spill costs, said it expected an additional $3-5 billion of divestments in 2016.

Fourth-quarter upstream earnings for oil majors are expected to fall by 84 percent from a year earlier and 48 percent from the previous quarter, according to analysts at Macquarie.

BP will report fourth quarter and full-year results for 2015 on Feb. 2.

(Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Jason Neely and Susan Fenton)

Wall Street steadies as oil plunges, China woes deepen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street rallied to finish slightly higher on Monday, steadying after a brutal start to 2016, while beaten-down oil prices plunged further after a fresh tumble for Chinese stocks.

In a volatile session in which U.S. stocks were lower much of the day, the S&P 500 and the Dow rallied to close higher after last week posting their worst-ever five-day starts to the year.

China’s main stock indexes each dropped more than 5 percent on Monday. Oil prices fell to new 12-year lows, as concerns over China hurt commodity prices broadly.

Noting that weak signs out of China and falling oil prices have recently pressured stocks, Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana, said: “You had both those things happen today and the market managed to finish upward.

“The fact that it did hold up for the same reasons that it seemed to go down last week, that’s a victory,” Carlson said. “Today was kind of a nice, perhaps, first brick in the bottom being put in place.”

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 52.12 points, or 0.32 percent, to 16,398.57, the S&P 500 was up 1.64 points, or 0.09 percent, to 1,923.67 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 5.64 points, or 0.12 percent, to 4,637.99. Energy shares led declines, while the healthcare sector fell 1.2 percent as Celgene Corp weighed after posting a disappointing financial outlook.

Investors were looking to U.S. corporate earnings to help provide confidence, with major banks reporting later this week, despite expectations for a second consecutive quarter of overall declining earnings.

“We are going to start to get into earnings season and that is going to begin to be the bigger cue for this market,” Carlson said.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index gave up initial gains and ended down 0.4 percent as commodity shares tracked oil and metals prices lower.

MSCI’s broadest gauge of stocks globally slipped 0.4 percent after registering its biggest weekly decline in more than four years.

Oil prices fell for a sixth straight session to start the new year, as traders cited fears over slowing demand in China.

U.S. crude prices settled down 5.3 percent at $31.41 a barrel, while benchmark Brent dropped 6 percent to $31.55 a barrel.

“The focus is still on China and the demand concerns in China moving forward into 2016,” said Tony Headrick, an energy market analyst at CHS Hedging LLC.

The U.S. dollar was up 0.3 percent against a basket of currencies, while the euro fell 0.7 percent against the dollar.

“Modestly improved risk sentiment was enough to cause the euro to lose some ground against the U.S. dollar,” said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst at Western Union Business Solutions in Washington.

U.S. Treasury yields inched higher in volatile trading. Benchmark 10-year notes were down 12/32 in price to yield 2.1736 percent, from 2.131 percent late on Friday.

Copper prices fell 2.2 percent to 6-1/2-year lows as the Chinese stock declines reinforced worries about demand in the world’s biggest consumer of industrial metals.

Spot gold fell 0.8 percent but still hovered at more than two-month highs.

The 19-market Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity Index sank 2.6 percent to a 13-1/2-year low.

(Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss, Catherine Ngai and Tariro Mzezewa in New York, Marc Jones and Amanda Cooper in London; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski and Dan Grebler)

Oil dive deepens to 12-year low; $20 warning on China

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A brutal new year selloff in oil markets quickened on Monday, with prices plunging 6 percent to new 12-year lows as further ructions in the Chinese stock market threatened to knock crude as low as $20 a barrel.

Amid an accelerating tailspin that shows no sign of slowing, Monday’s dive – the biggest one-day loss since September – triggered a rash of panicky trading across the market.

Long-term futures contracts for 2017 and beyond fell nearly as hard as those for immediate delivery as some producers rushed to hedge, while a key options gauge surged to nearly its highest since 2009.

The latest catalyst was a further 5 percent decline in China’s blue-chip stocks and a surge in overnight interest rates for the yuan outside of China to nearly 40 percent, their highest since the launch of the offshore market. Technical and momentum selling added fuel to the selloff.

Morgan Stanley warned that a further devaluation of the yuan could send oil prices spiraling into the $20-$25 per barrel range, extending the year’s 15 percent slide.

“The focus is still on China and the demand concerns in China moving forward into 2016,” said Tony Headrick, an energy market analyst at CHS Hedging LLC.

While China’s volatility is spooking traders over the outlook for demand from the world’s No. 2 consumer, drillers in the United States say they are focused on keeping their wells running as long as possible, despite the slump.

U.S. shale output is expected to decline by 116,000 barrels per day in February versus the month before, the same rate as January’s estimated drop and a slower pace than many had expected months ago, the Energy Information Administration said.

Brent crude futures fell $2.00 to settle at $31.55 a barrel, their lowest since April 2004. Brent has fallen more than 15 percent in six straight days of losses, the worst such slump in a year.

Long-dated Brent crude prices for 2017 and 2018 fell nearly as hard as the tumbling front-month contract on Monday amid a scramble of producer hedging, according to dealers.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell $1.75 to settle at $31.41 a barrel, the lowest since December 2003.

The fierce selling triggered a renewed scramble to buy options betting on a further slide, sending the CBOE volatility index, a gauge of options premiums based on moves in the U.S. oil exchange traded fund, over 13 percent higher to more than 63 – close to its highest level in seven years.

Nearly 17,000 lots of March $30 puts and 18,000 lots of February $30 puts traded, doubling Friday’s volumes.

The markets are positioned in a way where “traders are afraid to be long,” said Clayton Vernon, a trader and economist with Aquivia LLC in New Jersey. “The firm push for normalization with Iran has taken the last shred of geopolitical risk out of traders’ minds.”

The European Union said on Monday that the lifting of sanctions on Iran could come soon, following a deal last year to curb the Middle East nation’s nuclear program. Many market participants say that Iran’s return to the oil markets would add more pressure to the global glut that has knocked prices from more than $100 in mid-2014.

Speculators cut their net long position to the smallest since 2010, with short positions rising in a sign that they are losing faith in a price rise any time soon.

(Additional reporting by Amanda Cooper in London and Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Andrew Hay)

Wall Street has worst start to year ever

(Reuters) – U.S. stocks closed lower on Friday, ending a volatile week with their worst five-day start to a year ever, as sliding oil prices and lingering worries about the global economy offset upbeat U.S. job growth.

Both the Dow and S&P 500 had their worst five-day starts in history, with the Dow falling 6.2 percent for the week and S&P 500 sliding 6 percent. The Nasdaq was down 7.3 percent this week.

All three indexes saw losses accelerating into the close.

The market had opened higher after data showing U.S. nonfarm payrolls surged in December and the unemployment rate held steady. But that was not enough to keep stocks in positive territory.

Oil prices fell for a fifth day and Brent lost 10 percent for the week, while the S&P energy sector <.SPNY> also extended this week’s slide, ending the day down 1.3 percent.

Fears of a slowdown in China and the global economy spooked investors this week, creating a turbulent start to the trading year.

“The start of the year is very poor, so that’s got investors on the defensive,” said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.

“In the face of weakening global growth … it’s difficult to find reasons to commit money at this point even if one is bullish,” he said, adding that he expects stocks to rebound from these oversold conditions next week.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> was down 167.65 points, or 1.02 percent, to 16,346.45, the S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 21.06 points, or 1.08 percent, to 1,922.03 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 45.80 points, or 0.98 percent, to 4,643.63.

The CBOE Volatility Index <.VIX> ended up 8.1 percent Friday at 27.01, its highest close since Sept. 28.

All 10 S&P 500 sectors ended with declines.

Gap <GPS.N> sank 14.3 percent to $22.91 after the apparel retailer reported a larger-than-expected drop in December same-store sales, while Container Store <TCS.N> slumped 41.2 percent to $4.22, a day after storage products retailer’s fourth-quarter profit forecast missed estimates.

Apple <AAPL.O> shares, however, snapped their three-day losing streak and were up 0.5 percent at $96.96.

Volume was again heavy. About 8.9 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, well above the 7.3 billion daily average for the past 20 trading days, according to Thomson Reuters data.

NYSE declining issues outnumbered advancing ones 2,092 to 980, for a 2.13-to-1 ratio on the downside; on the Nasdaq, 2,018 issues fell and 812 advanced for a 2.49-to-1 ratio favoring decliners.

The S&P 500 posted one new 52-week high and 93 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 13 new highs and 312 new lows.

(Additional reporting by Tanya Agrawal; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Nick Zieminski)