Markets Open Sharply Down

Wall Street opened sharply down across the board on a poor earnings report from industrial giant General Electric.

In the first 15 minutes of trading, the Dow was off about 170 points, or 2 percent.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq had both slightly recouped opening losses that drove them down more than 2 percent and were both down less than 2 percent.

GE reported its fourth-quarter earnings before the markets opened this morning, and the news was bad: Profit was down 46 percent, as the recession has crippled lending at the GE Capital unit.

The poor performance of GE Capital offset growth in the company's other units: Revenue was up 2 percent in the GE division that makes jet engines, up 20 percent in the division that makes locomotives and up 21 percent in the division that makes power plant turbines.

-- Frank Ahrens
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