Markets went back to tumbling on Thursday after a brief reprieve on Wednesday. The Dow fell 741 points, or 2.4%, to close below 30,000 at 29,927; the benchmark S&P fell 123 points, or 3.2%, to 3,666; and the tech-centric Nasdaq fared worst of all, falling 453 points, or 4%, to 10,646. Wall Street fell with stocks across Europe after central banks there followed up on the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate hike on Wednesday, per the AP. The Bank of England raised its key rate for the fifth time since December, though it opted for a more modest increase of 0.25 percentage points than the 0.75-point hammer brought by the Fed.
Switzerland’s central bank, meanwhile, raised rates for the first time in years, a half-point hike. Taiwan’s central bank raised its key rate by an eighth of a point. Japan's central bank began a two-day meeting, though it's held out on raising rates and making other economy-slowing moves. “The clear read-through here is the FOMC (Fed) has unleashed the central bank Hawkish Genie from the bottle, and we should expect more aggressive follow-through from other central banks except those who are economically challenged,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.
The worries dragged the S&P 500 into a bear market earlier this week, meaning it had dropped more than 20% from its peak. It's now roughly 24% below its record set early this year and back to where it was in late 2020. That effectively erases 2021, which was one of the best years for Wall Street since the turn of the millennium. The US economy is still largely holding up, driven in particular by a strong jobs market. Fewer workers filed for unemployment benefits last week than a week before, a report showed on Thursday. But more signs of trouble have been emerging. On Thursday, one report showed homebuilders broke ground on fewer homes last month.
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