The 2022 stock selloff intensified on Monday with the S&P 500 tumbling to a fresh low for the year and closing in bear market territory as recession fears grew ahead of this week's key Federal Reserve meeting.
The Dow Jones Industrials handed back 876.05 points, or 2.8%, to 30,516.74.
The S&P 500 stumbled 151.23 points, or 3.9%, to 3,749.63, to its lowest level since March 2021, bringing its losses from its January record to more than 21%.
The benchmark closed in bear market territory (down more than 20% from its high) after trading there briefly on an intraday basis about three weeks ago.
Some on Wall Street say it's not an official bear market until it closes there and that's what happened on Monday. The stock market's last bear market was in March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic.
The NASDAQ Composite plunged 530.80 points, or 4.7%, to 10,809.23.
Shares of Boeing tunneled 9%, Salesforce cratered 6%, and American Express fell about 5%, dragging down the Dow as recession fears picked up. Beaten-up tech shares also took a hit with Netflix, Tesla and Nvidia down more than 7% as the NASDAQ touched a fresh 52-week
low and its lowest level since November 2020.
Travel stocks also slipped on Monday as Carnival Corporation lost 10% and Norwegian Cruise Line plummeted about 12%. Delta Air Lines dropped more than 8% while United tumbled about 10%.
The Federal Reserve is expected to announce at least a half-point rate hike on Wednesday. The Fed has already raised rates twice this year, including a 50-basis-point (0.5 percentage point) increase in May in an effort to stave off the recent inflation surge. Though some economists after the hot CPI report believed the Fed could even raise rates by 0.75% this week.
Treasury prices wallowed, raising yields to 3.38% from Friday's 3.16%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices gained 41 cents to $121.08 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices withered $51.50 to $1,824.00 U.S. an ounce.