Stock market averages continue to skid after 300-point drop in Dow

NEW YORK, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. stock prices continued to skid Tuesday, a day after the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 331 points in a single day.

At almost 1:30 p.m., the Dow was down 225.99 points or 1.29 percent for the day to 1,725.66. The S&P 500 had fallen 1.31 percent to 1,994.16.

The NASDAQ had fallen even farther, down 1.74 percent to 4,571.82.

The slump in oil prices appeared to be driving much of the decline. Exxon Mobil Corp. was selling for $89.17 per share at about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, down $1.12 for the day.

The stock market hit record levels last year. But Bill Gross, a market expert who trades bonds at Janus, predicted many stocks will end this year down from their current prices.

"The good times are over," he told USA Today.

The Dow has fallen 3.1 percent since New Year's Day, the steepest beginning-of-the-year dropoff since 2008. But some experts disagree with Gross that the rocky start means the Bull Market has turned bearish.

LPL Financial, the largest association of independent financial advisers, said the current expansion has already seen two "corrections" in stock prices along with two "close calls."

"Bull markets do not end because of a rise in volatility, an increased frequency of market downdrafts, or even the lengthening duration of the economic expansion," LPL said. "The labor markets are improving but are not strong enough yet to generate anything more than modest upward pressure on wages to drive inflation, and U.S. factories have excess capacity. As a result, the Fed is unlikely to start hiking interest rates until the latter part of 2015 at the earliest."