The market free fall continued during the midday with the Dow sinking 345 points to 15,859. Nasdaq collapsed 137 points to 4,225.
On the upside
Sientra (Nasdaq: SIEN) announced that all of its products will return to the U.S. market beginning on March 1, 2016.
Rising silver prices lifted shares of Endeavour Silver (NYSE: EXK).
The Wall Street Journal reported that GoPro (Nasdaq: GPRO) entered a patent licensing agreement with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT).
On the downside
The Food and Drug Administration placed a partial hold on the clinical studies being conducted by CTI BioPharma (Nasdaq: CTIC) for pacritinib.
BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: BCRX) reported disappointing results from a clinical trial of avoralstat to treat hereditary angioedema attacks.
Brixmor Property Group (NYSE: BRX) chief executive Michael Carroli, chief financial officer Michael Pappagallo and chief accounting officer Steven Splain all resigned after an internal audit revealed financial statements had been altered.
In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of 8 to 1 on the NYSE and by more than 4 to 1 on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 collapsed 48 points to 1,831. Bitcoin eased a fraction to $376.