Dow sinks as oil prices slump

US stocks plunged today as a broker’s downgrade of Dell and higher oil prices aggravated Wall Street’s worries about a shaky start to second-quarter earnings. The Dow Jones industrial average sank more than 121 points.

An analyst’s reduced outlook for Dell drove concerns about the impact of a slowing US economy on tech companies, whose shares led the broader market lower and gave the Nasdaq composite index its biggest one-day drop in a month. Meanwhile, rising oil prices intensified the market’s inflation jitters.