Companies which are most-dependent on economic growth tumbled today. Alcoa, the largest U.S. aluminum producer, retreated 1.6 percent to $8.41. Caterpillar, the world's largest maker of construction equipment, lost 2.1 percent to $85.76. Bank of America dropped 3.6 percent to $7.09.
Casino companies sank as growth in Macau casino gambling revenue slowed, matched analysts' estimates. Wynn Resorts, the casino company founded by billionaire Steve Wynn, dropped 2.8 percent to $100.13. MGM Resorts retreated 3 percent to $10.51. Las Vegas Sands lost 3.8 percent to $44.43.
Facebook slumped 4 percent to $28.41, following a 5 percent rally yesterday. Last month, it completed the biggest technology IPO on record just as offerings were drying up, and has since lost more than $20 billion in market value.
The Menlo Park, California-based social-networking company led U.S. IPOs to their worst monthly performance since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed, as Europe's debt crisis scuttled IPO plans from New York to Hong Kong.
IPO Index
The Bloomberg IPO Index, which tracks U.S. equities in the first year after their IPOs, sank 15 percent last month, with Facebook posting the worst one-week performance among the 30 largest U.S. IPOs since 2011. The IPO index's decline is in line with the drop in October 2008, the month after Lehman's bankruptcy triggered the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Kayak Software Corp. and Russian social-networking company VKontakte shelved listings this week, while Graff Diamonds Corp. delayed a Hong Kong sale and the Formula One auto-racing series said its Singapore IPO may not occur until later this year. Facebook's 22 percent slump since going public has shaken investors already reeling from tumbling equity markets and the slumping European economy, said Jeffrey Sica of Sica Wealth Management LLC.
"We've reached a breaking point where sentiment is so negative and scrutiny is so high that companies don't want to go public and investors aren't prepared to look at them," said Sica, who oversees more than $1 billion as chief investment officer of the Morristown, New Jersey-based firm. "You're talking about long-standing damage to the psyche of companies wanting to go public and investors."