Investing.com – Wall Street fell on Thursday as the European Central Bank cut its growth forecasts, raising fresh concerns about a slowing global economy.
The central bank slashed its growth forecast for 2019 to 1.1% from 1.7% previously, pushed back a potential rate hike to next year and offered banks cheap loans to help stimulate the economy. It cited trade tensions with the U.S., worries over Brexit and "vulnerabilities in emerging markets".
"The Governing Council expects the key ECB interest rates to remain at their present levels “at least through the end of 2019,” the ECB said in a slight change of phrasing. Until January, it had said rates would be on hold “at least through the summer.”
The S&P 500 fell 8 points or 0.29% as of 9:35 AM ET (14:35GMT), while the Dow slipped 75 points, or 0.29%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite decreased 30 points, or 0.41%.
Kroger (NYSE:KR) slumped 12% after its earnings came in lower than expected, while technology stocks were also among the hardest hit, with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) down 0.22% and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) falling 0.9%. Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) was down 2% while Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) slipped 1.4%.
Elsewhere, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) rose 0.30%, amid news that debuted its V3 Superchargers, while Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) increased 0.45%.
In commodities, gold futures slipped 0.20% to $1,285.15 a troy ounce while crude oil rose 0.3% to $56.41 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, jumped 0.5% to 97.31.