After moving sharply lower early in the session, stocks have seen even further downside over the course of the trading day on Monday. The Dow is moving lower for the seventh straight session, tumbling to its lowest intraday level in over nine months.
Currently, the major averages are off their worst levels of the day but still firmly negative. The Dow is down 790.46 points or 2.3 percent at 33,474.91, the Nasdaq is down 450.88 points or 3.3 percent at 13,318.04 and the S&P 500 is down 123.52 points or 2.8 percent at 4,274.42.
Concerns about tightening monetary policy continue to weigh on the markets ahead of this week’s Federal Reserve meeting.
The Fed is scheduled to begin a two-day meeting on Tuesday, with the latest monetary policy decision due Wednesday afternoon.
While the Fed is likely to leave interest rates unchanged, the accompanying statement could hint at the first rate hike as early as the next meeting in mid-March.
Recent downward momentum is also contributing to continued weakness on Wall Street after the S&P 500 saw its worst week since March of 2020 last week.
Along with the Fed announcement, reports on consumer confidence, new home sales, durable goods orders and personal income and spending may attract attention in the coming days.
Airline stocks are turning in some of the market’s worst performances in afternoon trading, resulting in a 5.2 percent nosedive by the NYSE Arca Airline Index.
Substantial weakness is also visible among computer hardware stocks, as reflected by the 4.1 percent plunge by the NYSE Arca Computer Hardware Index. With the drop, the index has fallen to a ten-month intraday low.
Brokerage stocks have also moved sharply lower over the course of the session, dragging the NYSE Arca Broker/Dealer Index down by 3.4 percent to its lowest intraday level in six months.
Energy, software and semiconductor stocks have also shown notable moves to the downside on the day, reflecting another day of broad-based weakness.
In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region turned in a mixed performance during trading on Monday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index rose by 0.2 percent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slumped by 1.2 percent.
Meanwhile, the major European markets all showed substantial moves to the downside on the day. While the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index tumbled by 2.6 percent, the French CAC 40 Index and the German DAX Index plunged by 3.8 percent and 4 percent, respectively.
In the bond market, treasuries have pulled back off their best levels but continue to see modest strength. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, is down by 2.1 basis points at 1.726 percent.
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