New York Stock Exchange logo on the floor, Wednesday, March 16, 2022.
Highlight
- All three main Wall Street benchmarks surrendered gains made on Wednesday
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 3.12%, the Nasdaq Composite down 4.99%
- Earlier on Wednesday, the Fed raised interest rates by half a percentage point.
US stocks closed sharply lower on Thursday amid concerns about a further tightening of monetary policy by the Federal Reserve. A day earlier, the Fed raised interest rates by 40 basis points to tame rising inflation, the biggest hike in two decades.
All three main Wall Street benchmarks – the Dow Jones, Nasdaq and S&500, surrendered gains made during a relief rally on Wednesday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,063.09 points, or 3.12%, to 32,997.97, its worst daily performance since October 2020.
The Nasdaq Composite fell 647.17 points, or 4.99%, to 12,317.69, its biggest one-day percentage drop since June 2020. It ended at its lowest since November 2020.
All major technology stocks Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Tesla and Amazon rallied between 4.3% and 8.3%.
The S&P 500 closed 153.3 points, or 3.56%, down at 4,146.87. Only a few components of the S&P 500 were in the green, one of which was Twitter.
Earlier on Wednesday, the US central bank had increased interest rates by half a percentage point.