NEW YORK — Stocks took another late-day dive Tuesday after the government said it was starting criminal and civil investigations into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The Dow Jones industrial average dropped almost 113 points. Its plunge came shortly before the close and minutes after Attorney General Eric Holder made the announcement. Stocks in energy companies and oil-services providers tumbled on the news, and other stocks followed.
Holder would not say which companies or individuals might be under investigation. But investors quickly dumped stocks across the energy industry. BP, which operated the rig that caused the spill, fell almost 15 percent. Anadarko Petroleum, which has a stake in the rig that exploded, tumbled nearly 20 percent. Oil-services company Halliburton fell almost 15 percent.
Analysts have said the oil spill has been among the many issues nagging at investors in recent weeks. Among the fears in the market is the potential economic hit from the spill.
“Right now, it’s headline risk that’s killing us in this market,” said Ken Kamen, president of Mercadien Asset Management in Hamilton, N.J. He said the question marks that pop up when news breaks are making traders think it’s safer to just retreat.
The Dow fell 112.61, or 1.1 percent, to 10,024.02. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 18.70, or 1.7 percent, to 1,070.71, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 34.71, or 1.5 percent, to 2,222.33.
Trading was choppy for much of the day before Holder’s announcement, a sign that investors weren’t sure where to put their money. Investors were juggling worries about Europe’s debt problems with upbeat reports on U.S. manufacturing and construction.
The euro slid as low as $1.2112, its lowest level since April 2006, before climbing back to $1.2210. The euro’s moves against other currencies have come to reflect traders’ confidence in Europe’s ability to manage a sovereign debt crisis that started in Greece but has spread to other European nations such as Portugal and Spain.
