Investing.com – U.S. stocks suffered their worst losses since late August on Wednesday as worries built up about slowing global growth.
The selloff in the United States followed a nasty slump in Europe, with indexes in Germany, the U.K. and France falling around 3%. The violence of the slump boosted expectations the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates later this month.
The S&P 500 was down 1.79%. The Dow fell 1.86% and the Nasdaq Composite was down 1.56%. The Nasdaq 100 Index, weighted toward big technology companies, fell 1.74%.
The Dow was off as many as 598 points before bargain hunters stepped in and trimmed the losses nearly down to about 400 points before late selling set in again. It closed off nearly 500 points. The S&P and Dow have fallen about 3% in two days, with the Nasdaq dropping 2.7%.
U.S. stocks have been buffeted by the ongoing U.S.-China trade fight and slowing economies elsewhere, especially Europe. Both the trade fight and slowdown issues are starting to affect domestic manufacturing and financial stocks. The issues have been visible since the market peaked in mid-July.
The S&P 500 is now down 4.64% from its July all-time high. The Dow's decline is 4.8% and the Nasdaq's is 6.65%. But it should be noted stocks for the year are still up nicely. The problem is that most of the gains came in the first quarter as equities recovered from last year's ugly fourth-quarter slump.
Only one of the 30 Dow stocks was higher. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) moved up 1.55% after settling an opiod suit in Ohio for $20 million. Only 10 stocks in the Nasdaq 100 Index showed gains, led by payroll processor Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX) and Charter Communications (NASDAQ:CHTR).
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) dropped 2.5% with Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) down 1.29% and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) off 1.77%.
Energy, consumer staples and financials were the weakest sectors, all falling more than 2%. Industrial stocks were off 1.9%. No S&P 500 sector was positive on the day.
An exception was homebuilder Lennar (NYSE:LEN), up 3.77% after easily beating expectations for third-quarter earnings. Shares of the second-largest builder (by units sold) briefly hit a 52-week high of $57.92.
Lennar was top performing S&P 500 stock, followed by Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and Charter Communications (NASDAQ:CHTR).
Among the biggest S&P 500 losers were retailers, including Macy’s (NYSE:M), Kohl's (NYSE:KSS), L Brands (NYSE:LB) and Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN).
The selloff helped push oil prices and oil stocks lower. West Texas Intermediate crude fell 98 cents to $52.64 a barrel and is off 5.85% this week. Brent crude, the global benchmark, fell $1.20 to $57.69.
Gold futures jumped $18.90 to $1507.90 an ounce, along with other precious metal prices, as investors sought safety. They also sought safety in bonds. The 10-Year Treasury yield fell to 1.601% from Tuesday's 1.644%.