NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell sharply on Friday, leaving the benchmark S&P 500 with its worst weekly performance since May 2012, as investors pulled back from the markets in response to oil's free-fall and more weak data out of China.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> fell 315.51 points, or 1.79 percent, to 17,280.83, the S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 32.99 points, or 1.62 percent, to 2,002.34 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 54.57 points, or 1.16 percent, to 4,653.60.
For the week the Dow fell 3.8 percent, its largest weekly drop since November 2011; the S&P lost 3.5 percent, the most for any week since May 2012, and the Nasdaq fell 2.7 percent.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by James Dalgleish)
