Dow Stock Index logs worst day in December so far and Nasdaq is half way to correction as stocks lurch lower to conclude ugly Fed week
New York (Dec 19) U.S. stocks closed solidly lower Friday and the Dow booked the worst decline of the month so far, as investors assessed the economic impact of the spread of the coronavirus omicron variant and the most recent moves by central banks around the globe. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -1.48% closed down by about 531 points, or 1.5%, to reach 35,366, marking the worst daily drop since Nov. 30, FactSet data show. The S&P 500 index SPX, -1.03% closed down 48 points, or 1%, to reach 4,620, to mark the steepest daily decline since Dec. 1, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -0.07% retreated a more modest 11 points, or less than 0.1%, to reach 15,160, but had been at a low of 14,960.37 on Friday. Part of the volatility could be attributed to quadruple witching dayl, or the simultaneous expiration of single-stock options, single-stock futures, and stock-index options and stock-futures, and end of quarter fund rebalancing, analysts said. Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury note yield TMUBMUSD10Y, 1.407% briefly fell to below 1.40%. The slide in yields comes even after the Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced plans to speed up the reduction in its monthly bond purchases so that the program ends in March instead of June. The central bank also projected three quarter-point interest rate increases next year as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said there was a risk of high inflation persisting. For the week, the Dow booked a 1.7% decline, the S&P 500 lost 1.9% and the Nasdaq Composite finished with a weekly drop of 3%. The Nasdaq Composite stands 5.5% beneath its Nov. 19 record closing high. That puts it more than half way to a 10% correction from its recent peak back on Nov. 19.
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