A plunge in the shares of the world’s largest planemaker after a fatal crash in Ethiopia set the Dow Jones Industrial index for a sharp fall at the open on Monday and capped gains in the broader markets.
(Reuters) – A plunge in the shares of the world’s largest planemaker after a fatal crash in Ethiopia set the Dow Jones Industrial index for a sharp fall at the open on Monday and capped gains in the broader markets.
Boeing Co, the best performing Dow component this year by a wide margin, tumbled 11.5 percent in premarket trading, and appeared on track for its worst day in nearly two decades after many airlines grounded the company’s new 737 MAX 8 passenger jet following the second deadly crash in just five months.
Shares of American Airlines Group Inc, Southwest Airlines Co and JetBlue Airways Corp also dropped between 1.1 percent and 2.5 percent on the news.
« Boeing without any question is going to be the theme for the Dow index today, given its enormous weighting, but I don’t see a spillover to any other indexes except airlines, » said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas.
