Dow falls more than 300 points Friday, heads for second straight weekly loss
Sarah Min
Alex Harring
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Stocks dropped Friday as investors continued to sell into year-end on fears a recession is ahead next year because of the Federal Reserve’s unrelenting rate hiking.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 347 points, or 1.05%. The S&P 500 fell 1.25%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite declined 1.13%.
The indexes are poised to notch a second consecutive week of losses. The S&P 500 is off more than 2% for the week, and more than 6% for the month of December, as hopes for a year-end rally fizzle.
Trading was especially volatile Friday with a large amount of options expiring. There are $2.6 trillion worth of index options set to expire, the highest amount “relative to the size of the equity market in nearly two years,” according to Goldman Sachs.
The sell-off was broad-based, with just 11 names in the S&P 500 trading in positive territory. The real estate and utilities sectors were the biggest laggards, down more than 3% and 2%, respectively.
Meanwhile, shares of Meta rose nearly 3% after JPMorgan upgraded shares of the social media company to overweight from neutral. Shares of Adobe outperformed, up more than 3%, after the design software firm posted fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and guidance that topped expectations.
Stocks have been falling this week in the wake of the Fed’s 50 basis point interest rate hike on Wednesday — the highest rate in 15 years. The central bank said it would continue hiking rates through 2023 to 5.1%, a larger figure than previously expected.
Following the policy update, the Dow dropped 142 points on Wednesday, plunged 764 points Thursday, and continued to decline Friday.
Dow 5-day intraday
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Line chart with 422 data points.
The chart has 1 X axis displaying Time. Range: 2022-12-09 15:01:51 to 2022-12-16 15:01:51.
The chart has 1 Y axis displaying values. Range: 32500 to 35000.
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32 500
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35 000
cnbc.com
Thursday, Dec 15, 2:21 pm.DJI: 33067.57
End of interactive chart.
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“At the beginning of the week, we had the hope, given the very soft CPI number, that we could expect the Fed, and maybe the other central banks of the world, to be less hawkish,” Bokeh Capital founder Kim Forrest said.
“But because they didn’t, and they had some stern words for investors and consumers alike that they were really focused on getting inflation down quickly, that has taken away a lot of our hope for a soft landing,” Forrest added.
5 MIN AGO
Stocks come off session lows in final hour of trading
Stocks pared back some losses heading into the final hour of trading, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 346 points, or 1.04%. The S&P 500 is off by 1.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite is lower by 1.09%.
Earlier in the day, the Dow was down as much as 547.63 points, or 1.65%. The S&P 500 was down 1.74%, and the Nasdaq Composite had declined 1.56%.