(ICIS) -- Chemical stocks plunged on Thursday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 3.68%.
The Dow Jones US Chemicals Index fell 6.07% on Thursday as the index's total industrial average fell by almost 420 points.
The chemical index closed at 304.17, down 19.66 points. Based on percentage, it did worse than the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which closed at 10,990.58.
The plunge followed a report released by the US Department of Labor, which showed that 408,000 people filed for jobless claims for the week ended 13 August, up 9,000 from the previous week.
Also, US sales of existing homes fell by 3.5% in July from June, a drop attributed to overly tight lending standards. The report was the latest in a series of gloomy statistics released this week about the nation's struggling residential market.
MRC