U.S. shares lower at close of trade; Dow Jones Industrial Average down 4.55%

Investing.com – U.S. equities were lower at the close on Friday, as losses in the , and sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in NYSE, the declined 4.55% to hit a new 3-year low, while the index declined 4.34%, and the index lost 3.79%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the were The Travelers Companies Inc (NYSE:), which rose 4.00% or 3.44 points to trade at 89.51 at the close. Chevron Corp (NYSE:) added 3.48% or 2.00 points to end at 59.39 and Merck & Company Inc (NYSE:) was up 0.89% or 0.63 points to 71.36 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Walt Disney Company (NYSE:), which lost 9.43% or 8.95 points to trade at 85.98 in late trade. 3M Company (NYSE:) declined 9.18% or 12.62 points to end at 124.89 and Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:) shed 8.44% or 3.53 points to 38.30.

The top performers on the S&P 500 were Carnival Corporation (NYSE:) which rose 20.00% to 12.00, MGM Resorts International (NYSE:) which was up 18.31% to settle at 9.11 and Mosaic Co (NYSE:) which gained 16.67% to close at 9.59.

The worst performers were FLIR Systems Inc (NASDAQ:) which was down 18.73% to 25.52 in late trade, WEC Energy Group Inc (NYSE:) which lost 18.05% to settle at 74.09 and Arconic Inc (NYSE:) which was down 16.40% to 13.25 at the close.

The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were Bellerophon Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:) which rose 430.97% to 18.0000, Frontier Communications Corp (NASDAQ:) which was up 278.95% to settle at 0.9000 and Fiesta Restaurant Group Inc (NASDAQ:) which gained 214.90% to close at 10.99.

The worst performers were Sabre Corpo (NASDAQ:) which was down 13.35% to 3.31 in late trade, Biomerica Inc (NASDAQ:) which lost 55.31% to settle at 7.150 and Waitr Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:) which was down 53.08% to 1.2200 at the close.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1663 to 1251 and 35 ended unchanged; on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, 1649 fell and 1056 advanced, while 35 ended unchanged on the New York Stock Exchange.

The , which measures the implied volatility of S&P 500 options, was down 8.28% to 66.04.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was up 1.48% or 21.85 to $1501.15 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in May fell 8.68% or 2.25 to hit $23.66 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract fell 3.83% or 1.09 to trade at $27.38 a barrel.

EUR/USD was up 0.05% to 1.0695, while USD/JPY rose 0.11% to 110.81.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.40% at 103.188.