Sharjah24 – AFP: Wall Street stocks finished an ugly session with heavy losses Friday, pushing major indices into the red for the week amid anxiety over higher interest rates.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished at 33,811.40, down 2.8 percent or nearly 1,000 points.
The broad-based S&P 500 fell 2.8 percent to 4,271.78, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled 2.6 percent to 12,839.29.
The selloff followed hawkish remarks Thursday from Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who signaled that the central bank could enact a half-point rate increase in May, twice the level of the typical Fed hike.
"There's high anxiety over how aggressive the Fed is going to be," said Art Hogan, strategist at National Securities, adding that investors were also looking to lessen equity exposure ahead of the weekend.
Worries about the Fed and stubbornly high inflation have overshadowed more favorable dynamics, such as mostly good corporate earnings, a very strong employment market and data showing fairly resilient consumer spending.
"Markets are very uneasy about the growing likelihood of a policy error by the Federal Reserve," said Jamie Cox, managing partner for Harris Financial Group, adding that talk about a possible 75 basis point increase has especially rattled investors.
Friday's losses were broad-based, with all 11 indices of the S&P 500 in the red.
Among individual companies, Verizon dove 5.7 percent after the telecom giant released a disappointing earnings and revenue growth forecast given heavy spending on building its 5G network.
Gap was another big loser, plunging 18.1 percent as it announced it is replacing the head of its Old Navy chain, while it lowered its sale forecast.
But Kimberly-Clark jumped 8.2 percent as the consumer products company lifted its sales forecast following strong quarterly results.
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