U.S. Stocks Plunge as Consumer Sentiment Dips and UnitedHealth Investigated

Wall Street faced a major sell-off, with the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 all sliding. Consumer sentiment fell unexpectedly and UnitedHealth's stock dropped following a Justice Department investigation into Medicare billing.

The Dow plunged 748.63 points (1.7%) to 43,428.02, the Nasdaq dove 438.36 points (2.2%) to 19,524.01 and the S&P 500 slumped 104.39 points (1.7%) to 6,013.13.

the University of Michigan released a report showing consumer sentiment in the U.S. deteriorated by much more than previously estimated in the month of February post which the Wall Street came on a sell-off. Its consumer sentiment index for February was downwardly revised to 64.7 from a preliminary reading of 67.8. Economists had expected the index to be unrevised.

UnitedHealth (UNH) dropped steeply by 7.2% which weighed on the Dow. It plunged after the report from Wall Street Journal released which said that the Justice Department has launched an investigation into the company's Medicare billing practices in recent months.

Airline stocks moved sharply lower, resulting in a 4.9% nosedive by the NYSE Arca Airline Index. Gold stocks were also substantially weak, with the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index tumbling by 4.2%. Semiconductor stocks too were considerably weak, dragging the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index down by 3.3%. Networking, brokerage and software stocks as well significantly moved downwards while pharmaceutical stocks were among the few groups to buck the downtrend.

Asia-Pacific stocks moved mostly higher with Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index spiked 4%, China's Shanghai Composite Index advanced by 0.9% and Japan's Nikkei 225 Index rose by 0.3%. The major European markets turned in a mixed performance on the day while the French CAC 40 Index climbed by 0.4%, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index closed just below the unchanged line and the German DAX Index edged down by 0.1%.

In the bond market, treasuries extended the upward move seen in the previous session. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note which moves opposite of its price, slumped 8 bps to a two-month closing low of 4.42%.

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