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| - Wall Street opened lower on Monday as traders grappled with a continued drop in oil prices, which fell to 22-year lows as the coronavirus pandemic sapped demand for energy. About 40 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.5 percent to 23,879.01. The broad-based S&P 500 declined 1.2 percent to 2,840.64, while the tech-rich Nasdaq fell 0.7 percent to 8,587.31. The culprit, in part, was US crude benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI), whose contract for May delivery was hovering below $11 a barrel, the lowest level since 1998 due to the pandemic's hit to energy demand. The commodity showed few signs of reviving despite indications coronavirus cases may have peaked in Europe and the United States. An agreement earlier this month between OPEC and independent oil producers to slash crude output by 10 million barrels per day appeared to be having little impact as the lockdowns that forced people to stay home and kept crude demand low have not yet let up. Storage capacity is also becoming scarce in the United States, with the main WTI facilities in Cushing, Oklahoma filling up. Oil company shares were predictably hard-hit, with Chevron down 3.4 percent, ExxonMobil down 3.7 percent and Occidental Petroleum down 8.7 percent. More earnings announcements are expected from major US corporations this week, including Delta, one of the main players in the travel industry that has been imperiled by the virus. cs/hs
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