U.S. stocks sustained heavy losses on Thursday as traders ditched a wide swath of assets, leading the blue-chip average to hit the flat-line for 2014.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 317 points, or 1.9%, to 16563, the S&P 500 tumbled 39.7 points, or 2%, to 1931 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 93.1 points, or 2.1%, to 4370.
In a sign of the breadth of the selloff, every major sector was down by at least 1%. The biggest losers could be found in telecommunications, technology, energy and health care. Volume on the New York Stock Exchange was running about 40% higher than the one-month average. The VIX, a measure of implied volatility in U.S. stocks, surged 26%. MORE...