US equities plummeted on Wed as investors worried that a tighter monetary policy to quell inflation reaffirmed by Fed officials might cause an economic downturn. That spurred a flight to havens including US Treasuries and the dollar.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1,164.52pts or 3.57% to close at 31,490.07. The broader S&P 500 index fell 4.04%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite retreated 4.73%. The small cap Russell 2000 dropped 3.56%.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped 10.2 basis points (bps) to 2.8840%, while the yield on the 2-year Treasuries fell 3.09 bps to 2.6694%.
The ICE dollar index (DXY), which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of currencies, rose 0.44% to 103.810.
Mega cap tech stocks fell on Wed, including Apple (AAPL US, -5.64%), Microsoft (MSFT US, -4.77%) Amazon (AMZN US, -7.16%), Alphabet (GOOGL US, - 3.93%), Nvidia (NVDA US, -6.82%), and Meta Platforms (FB US, -5.12%).
Target (TGT US, -24.93%) plunged the most since Black Mon in 1987 after its earnings report showed costs biting into profits, a day after Walmart (WMT US, - 6.79%) also spiraled lower. Cisco Systems (CSCO US, -4.43%) shed 12.84% in after-hours trade. The firm warned of a sales decline in the current quarter and slashed its annual forecast.
The iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG US) fell 0.82%. Oil prices fell on Wed as US refiners ramped up output. The front-month Brent and WTI futures closed down $2.82 at US$109.11/bbl and $2.81 at US$109.59/bbl respectively.
The most actively traded US gold futures (Jun) contracts settled down $3.00, or 0.16%, at US$1,815.90/oz. July silver, which is the most actively traded silver futures, fell 20.6 cents, or 0.947%, to end at US$21.544/oz.
European equity markets finished lower on Wed. The UK FTSE lost 1.07%, France's CAC 40 fell 1.20%, while the German DAX retreated 1.26%.