Stocks Slammed Again as Oil Tumbled

U.S. stocks finished a wild day of trading lower on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 closing at its lowest in over a year as U.S. oil prices plummeted to 2003 lows. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 249.28 points, or 1.56%, to 15,766.74. The S&P 500 lost 22.00 points, or 1.17%, to 1,859.33. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 5.26 points, or 0.12%, to 4,471.69.

Oil futures took a dive on Wednesday, as continued concerns about the glut of crude pushed the February West Texas Intermediate crude contract below $27 a barrel to its lowest settlement in nearly 13 years. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, February WTI crude, which expired at Wednesday’s settlement, fell $1.91, or 6.7%, to finish at $26.55 a barrel.

Goldman Sachs made a strong commitment to its Wall Street business model on Wednesday after announcing lower revenue and profit for the fourth quarter. The firm’s revenue fell 5 percent in the fourth quarter from the same quarter a year ago, bringing revenue down 2 percent for all of 2015.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC Wednesday said its profit fell by as much as 50% in the fourth quarter compared with the same period in 2014. Shell said its fourth-quarter earnings excluding identified items is expected to be between $1.6 billion and $1.9 billion, down from $3.3 billion for the same period a year earlier.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc said more than 1.2 million of its employees would get a raise in 2016 and introduced new rules allowing staff to carry over paid days off as the retailer aims to retain workers amid a tight U.S.

FireEye Inc said on Wednesday it paid $200 million to buy privately held iSight Partners, in a move to boost its cyber intelligence offerings for governments and businesses as the sector consolidates.