By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — The stock market remained volatile late Friday morning as New Yorkers reacted to news of the 8.9-magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of Japan, triggering explosions, fears of nuclear disaster and a tsunami warning across the West Coast.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average had slipped 20 points to 11,964 by late morning, while the S&P was up 1.46 points. The NASDAQ Composite was down about 6 percent at 2,694.
The disaster comes as conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa have already left markets reeling and oil prices skyrocketing.
But some analysts said that, despite the severity of the disaster, the impact on U.S. markets would be limited.
"These types of events, they're very sad and they're very alarming, but they don't have a huge impact on economic activity and momentum," Christian Thwaites, president and chief executive of Sentinel Investments, told Dow Jones. "They kind of distract people from their terminals but I don't think people see them as big buying or big selling opportunities. Ultimately, they don't stop an economy in its tracks."
He also said that certain sectors of the economy could even benefit from the tragedy thanks to higher demand as Japan tries to rebuild.
Other recent natural disasters have also had little impact on the U.S. market. The Dow Jone actually closed slightly higher the day after the earthquake shook Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010. In December 2004, when a tsunami devastated Indonesia, there was virtually no change when trading resumed Monday.
The earthquake, which struck at 12:46 a.m. Eastern time, is the largest in Japan's history, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
