February 11 Market Close: GovCon Index, S&P 500 Fall to 10% YTD Plunges on Growth Fears & Boeing SEC Probe Report

The GovCon Index fell victim to across-the-board selloffs in global financial markets Thursday with a decline of 2.113 percent to 68.747, a figure that puts the Index at a decline of 11.34 percent from the start of the year.

Still in a correction, Thursday’s plunge sent the GCI below 70 for the second time this week after Tuesday was its first sub-70 close in almost four months.

Boeing (NYSE: BA) plunged 6.81 percent, or $7.92, after Bloomberg reported the Securities and Exchange Commission would investigate the company’s accounting practices with respect to costs and sales projections for the 787 Dreamliner and 747 jets.

Shares in Boeing hit an 8-percent decline shortly after Bloomberg published the report and plummeted to a two-and-a-half-year low at around 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, when the stock was down 12 percent.

Boeing’s stock is in a 52-week range of $102.10-to-$158.83, has declined 25 percent from the year’s start and is down 26.7 percent over 12 months.

CSRA (NYSE: CSRA) jumped 10.83 percent after the company reported third-quarter earnings above Wall Street expectations and affirmed its forecasts for both sales and profit, while Maximus (NYSE: MMS) and Science Applications International Corp. (NYSE: SAI) were the only other two Index gainers at 1.47 percent and 0.48 percent, respectively.

Like the GovCon Index, the S&P 500’s Thursday close puts it at least 10 percent down for the year as investors worry that near-zero or negative interest rates are contributing to a large-scale weakening in global markets, Reuters reported.

Investors reacted to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s statement that the U.S. central bank could consider a negative interest rate due to losses in equity markets and a weakened global economy, according to Reuters.

The Nasdaq composite index held negative throughout the session and briefly spiked into positive territory in the final hour of trade gains in Amazon and Cisco shares before a settle back into a decline.

Market Summary