NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks slid on Friday in a worldwide sell-off as investors fled equities on fears that the economic slowdown could be deeper than feared, diminishing the appetite for riskier assets.
Even so, it was not the bloodbath that many had feared.
In the overnight hours, selling was so fierce that trading in U.S. stock index futures was frozen until after Wall Street's opening bell.
Based on the latest available data, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 312.30 points, or 3.59 percent, to end unofficially at 8,378.95.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index slid 31.34 points, or 3.45 percent, to finish unofficially at 876.77. The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 51.88 points, or 3.23 percent, to close unofficially at 1,552.03.
For the week, the Dow unofficially dropped 5.4 percent, the Nasdaq tumbled 9.3 percent and the S&P 500 lost 6.8 percent.
(Reporting by Ellis Mnyandu; Editing by Jan Paschal)
