Stocks Rattled After Airlines Jet Crashes In Ukraine

Reports that a Malaysian Airlines jet carrying 295 people crashed on the Ukraine-Russia border have sent shock waves around the world.

While investigators try to piece together exactly what happened in Ukraine, investors reacted first by selling. The S&P 500 index dropped about 0.7% in the hour from 11am to noon EDT. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.5% and NASDAQ dropped the most: about 1%.

Wall Street seemed to calm down somewhat in the early afternoon and all three major indexes rebounded. As of 1:30pm EDT, the S&P was only down 0.4%, the Dow 0.1%, and the NASDAQ 0.5%.

The news likely won’t help Russian stocks, which were already having a bad day after President Obama announced its latest round of sanctions on Wednesday. The US sanctions target some of Russia’s biggest energy companies. The RTS index sank about 4%.