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Dec. 15 (UPI) — The Dow Jones Industrial Average had its worst day in months and markets as a whole dropped Thursday, after numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau showed retail sales declined more than expected in November.
The Nasdaq Composite declined by 360.36 points or 3.23% to 10,810.53, while the Dow Jones Industrial fell by 764 points or 2.25% to 33,202.22, and the S&P 500 dropped 99.5 points or 2.49%, to settle at 3,895.75.
Thursday’s decline marked the worst day for the Dow since September. The S&P 500 has now dropped by 4.5% for December, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq has fallen nearly 31% on the year.
Tesla, which gained $0.87 or 0.55% on the day, was the only company among the S&P 500’s 19 most actively-traded companies to finish the day in the black. This comes as the EV maker’s CEO Elon Musk, sold around $3.6 billion worth of stock in the company.
Telecom giant Verizon was among only companies on the Dow Jones to end the day in the black, up 32 cents to $37.77.
“This is not a buy-the-dip day. 2022 has not been a buy-the-dip year. if you have done so, you have lost money,” Blue Zone Wealth Advisors CEO Judith Lu told CNN in an interview.
“Inflation is way too high and the Fed has this monstrous job trying to get a handle on it.”
The negative news came one day after the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates by another half a percentage point, bringing the benchmark interest rate to the highest point in 15 years.
The Fed said it expects the benchmark interest rate to peak at 5.1% next year, higher than many analysts first predicted and stoking fears the United States could be moving closer to a recession.
“The equity market’s reaction is now factoring in a recession, and rejecting the possibility of the ‘soft/softish’ landing mentioned recently by Powell at the [Brookings Institution],” LPL Financial chief global strategist Quincy Krosby told CNBC on Thursday.
“The tug-of-war between the Fed and the markets is squarely on the market’s side: the slowdown is not ‘transitory,’ and the Fed will be forced to act before 2024.”
