Stocks continue slide in shortened Christmas Eve trading

Stocks continued their slide in a shortened Christmas Eve trading session as hope dimmed that Washington would fix the fiscal cliff before year’s end.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 38 points, or 0.3%, to 13,152 shortly after the opening bell on Wall Street. Volumes were expected to be light in the holiday session.

The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 4 points, or 0.3%, to 1,426. The technology-heavy Nasdaq was down 9 points, or 0.3%, to 3,012.

After Speaker John Boehner’s “Plan B” flopped in the U.S. House, investors have become more pessimistic about the chances that Congress and President Obama would resolve the so-called fiscal cliff by Dec. 31.

Major U.S. indexes fell about 1% Friday. Economists warn that automatic spending cuts and tax increases could push the U.S. economy back into a recession.

U.S. markets will close at 10 a.m. PDT on Monday.

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