Stocks Bow to Bad News; Dow Slides 5%

Elsewhere among retailers, Amazon.com (AMZN Quote) suffered a Citigroup downgrade to hold from buy. Shares declined 9.2% to $47.22.

In other analyst actions, Goldman reduced its price target for News Corp. to $9 from $13 after the media company's earnings results missed estimates.

In the commodities space, crude oil was down $4.51 to settle at $60.77 a barrel. Gold dropped $10.20 to close at $732.20 an ounce.

Longer-dated U.S. Treasury securities were mixed. The 10-year note was higher by 2/32, yielding 3.7%, and the 30-year was declining 11/32 to yield 4.2%. The dollar was gaining on the euro and pound but falling vs. the yen.

Globally speaking, European exchanges, including the FTSE in London and the DAX in Frankfurt, were trading lower. Asian markets likewise closed to the downside.