US stocks fell Wednesday amid concerns over massive job losses and profit warnings from Intel and Time Warner, dpa reported.
Computer chip giant Intel warned of a fourth-quarter sales plunge of more than 23 per cent and said it expected to record an investment loss of about 1 billion dollars.
The world's largest chipmaker originally forecast between 10.1 billion dollars and 10.9 billion dollars in revenue, but now expects revenues in the crucial holiday period to be just 8.2 billion dollars, down from 10.7 billion dollars a year earlier.
Alcoa, the largest US aluminium maker, plunged 10 per cent on Wednesday after its announcement Tuesday that it would slash 13,500 jobs, or 13 per cent of its workforce, worldwide by the end of 2009.
Time Warner, the world's largest media conglomerate, said it will take a 25-billion-dollar write-down in its fiscal fourth quarter, propelling the company to its first annual loss in six years.
Wall Street's Wednesday slump came ahead of the release on Friday of the government's unemployment figures for December, which are expected to be in the range of 475,000 jobs lost. This would put the total job cuts for 2008 at more than 2 million.
There was good news from Monsanto, the world's largest provider of agriculture and biotechnology products, which was buoyed by strong first-quarter sales to Latin America and boosted its profit projections for the ongoing fiscal year.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 245.40 points, or 2.72 per cent, to 8,769.70. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index shed 28.05 points, or 3 per cent, to 906.65. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index was down 53.32 points, or 3.23 per cent, to 1,599.06.
The US currency fell against the euro to 73.347 euro cents from 74.086 euro cents on Tuesday. The dollar slid against the Japanese currency to 92.655 yen from 93.568 yen on Tuesday.