The worst day for Wall Street in 2023 is today. During a wider stock market selloff, the Dow and S&P had their biggest drops in two months.
Tuesday was another bad day for the US stock markets. Investors are getting ready for the Federal Reserve to raise key interest rates again after the latest inflation data and a bad outlook for retail.
Trading data show that the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended with a drop of 2.06%, or nearly 700 points, to 33,129. This was the biggest drop since December 15. The S&P 500 dropped 2%, which was also the biggest drop since December 15. It ended the day at 3,997. All of the indices ended down, but stocks in the consumer discretionary sector fell the most, by 3.3%. The Nasdaq Composite fell by 2.50 percent, ending at 11,492.
At first, US stocks went up at the beginning of 2023, but they have since lost steam due to fears of more rate hikes. The market as a whole dropped before the Fed released the minutes of its meeting from January 31 to February 1, where it raised interest rates by 25 basis points.
The market thinks that the central bank will raise rates by another 25 basis points when it meets in March and again in May, but it is waiting for the minutes to see what the Fed has to say about its future policy.
The sell-off on Tuesday also happened after Walmart, the biggest retailer in the US, gave a cautious outlook for 2023, saying that full-year earnings were likely to be less than expected because of lower demand and higher prices. Walmart’s CFO, John David Rainey, told CNBC that consumers are still “very pressured” by high grocery prices and buy fewer non-essential items as a result.
According to data that came out last week, inflation slowed down a bit in January, rising at an annual rate of 6.4%. However, this is still much higher than the goal of 2%.