(MENAFN- ProactiveInvestors)After a bruising session where energy and tech stocks led declines on growth fears and weaker oil prices Wall Street tickers managed to halve losses on bargain-hunting late on Monday. Traders said that stocks had been oversold during the day affording investors an opportunity to step back in late in the day. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite which just an hour before the close was nursing a more than 3% drop managed to halve that to a 1.6% loss to 3960.67. Meanwhile the Dow Jones Industrial Average which earlier in the day endured a 400-point haemorrhage managed to more than halve the loss and was last down 1.1% or 177 points at 16027.05. Only the broader S&P500 index was unable to muster recovery anchored by losses in nine sectors including materials and financials while energy stocks sealed the ticker's lowly close. The S&P500 was down 1.4% at 1853.44 in late trading. Falling oil prices dominated the city skyline for why markets were lower along with worries about global economic growth in light of the weaker-than-expected US non-farm payrolls report last Friday. The crude oil benchmark future the West Texas Intermediate deliverable in March was down 2.7% at US$30.07 a barrel and increasing the pain for energy companies. While in London BP's share price ended down 0.35% the effect of the general downbeat mood in New York saw its US listing quoted at US$29.93 down 1.7% on the day while Royal Dutch Shell came off more lightly a 0.5% decline to US$44.47. While Wall Street shares saved some face late in the day there was no getting away from the big picture that global growth prospects are a worry to investors and that they were looking for a safe haven to park their cash. They have recently found that in gold and late on Monday the gold price managed to break US$1200 for the first time in eight months. MID-SESSION Stock prices have stabilized at their lower levels with energy and tech stocks prominent among the casualties. The S&P 500 was off 35 points at 1846 in the early part of the lunchtime session while the Dow Jones average was down by a nice round number – 300 points – at 15905. With the likes of computer memory maker Micron hard disks maker Western Digital and online payments king PayPal all registering losses of more than 6% it was no surprise that the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was the hardest hit of the three main benchmarks down 2.3% or 101 points at 4262. The oil price recovered a little at the end of the morning session but with the March futures contract for West Texas light sweet crude off 2.2% it would hardly justify as a rally. Gold on the other hand was enjoying a lot of popularity and rose $34 to $1192 an ounce in the morning session. Other bright spots include Destination Maternity (NASDAQ:DEST) the maternity clothing retailer which rose 4.4% as French children's apparel seller Orchestra-Premaman upped the cash element of its proposed takeover. BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:BCRX) lost two-thirds of its value as it revealed the results of a clinical trial of its OpuS-2 treatment for hereditary angioedema (HAE) attacks. Treatment with 500 mg and 300 mg of the formulation three times daily failed to demonstrate a statistically significantly lower mean (average) attack rate versus placebo. CTI BioPharma (NASDAQ:CTIC) was another pharma stock in the wars down almost 60% after it provided an update on its investigational agent Pacritinib. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has placed a partial clinical hold on the clinical studies that had been in progress. The FDA has recommended that the company makes certain modifications of protocols and CTI said it intended to comply with these recommendations. Open Oil was back on the slide dragging US equity prices with it. The price of West Texas intermediate for March delivery was hovering around the $30 a mark in early trading down almost 3% on the session. Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:CHK) lost around two-fifths of its value as reported circulated on Friday that the plummeting oil price had prompted the company to look at restructuring its debt as it might struggle to keep up the payments if the price of cruise remains in the slough of despond. Debtwire reported that Chesapeake had hired restructuring lawyers Kirkland & Ellis. Sector peer Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) shed around a quarter of its value as unease increases over its planned merger with Energy Transfer Equity. With energy giants in the doghouse the S&P 500 fell 1.6% in the first 45 minutes of trading to 1849 while the more narrowly-based Dow Jones average also declined 1.6% to 15943. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was even harder hit giving back 2.3% at 4262. Apollo Education (NASDAQ:APOL) the company behind the University of Arizona provided some cheer as it agreed to be taken private in a $1.1bn deal. The shares climbed almost 26% to $8.75 50 cents shy of the $9.50 a share cash offer.
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