Slowdown in the global economy continued to be felt in the markets as three major indices registered steep weekly declines on Friday trading. The S&P 500 index suffered its fourth consecutive losing week, registering a drop of 22.5 points or 2.2 percent, ending the week at 2079.65.
The NASDAQ composite index tumbled down by 57.78 points or 2.3 percent and closed at 5088.63. The Dow Jones Industrial Average Index shed 163.39 points or 2.9 percent, ending at 17568.53 - the biggest weekly fall since January 2015, noted Thenextdigit.
There were 50 new 52-week highs and 200 new lows for NASDAQ firms, while 13 new high and 54 lows were logged by S&P 500 Index companies.
NASDAQ-listed Biogen (NASDAQ:BIIB) posted only almost half of its revenue growth forecast for 2015, causing the shareprice of the pharmaceutical firm to register a 22 percent loss as it closed at $300.03.
However, another NASDAQ-listed firm, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) became bigger in market capitalization than retail giant Wal-Mart when its cloud computing business contributed $40 billion more for the second quarter. As a result, shares of Amazon jumped $47.24 or 9.8 percent to close at $529.42 which is a 47 percent increase compared to the last 12 months.
Meanwhile, for S&P 500 companies, only 52 percent beat their revenue forecast, while 74 percent exceeded analysts' profit prediction. One of such companies is Visa which closed higher by 4.3 percent to $74.80 due to an impressive Q2 result.
FX Empire gives its forecast for S&P 500 for the coming week below.
The Washington Post reports that weaker-than-expected economic data from China weighed heavily on the market, particularly energy and materials sector shares. This prompted the eurozone to bring up concerns about global growth as oil prices hit its ebb since March.