PeterS

The stock market sell-off on Wall Street intensified Wednesday, knocking the Dow down more than 600 points and wiping out the gains for the year for the blue-chip average and the broad Standard & Poor's 500 index.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2018/10/24/market-downturn-stocks-plunge-again-wiping-out-gains-year/1754130002/?fbclid=IwAR1ULjPiI_wXNYScpO4UTbnu_vRwttKJx89cUzgUJvIt4rqoX3oZsTynwhY

Technology stocks, which had been the best-performing part of the market earlier in 2018, suffered the biggest declines. The Nasdaq composite, home to many of the market's most popular tech stocks, plunged 4.4 percent, pushing it down 12.3 percent from its late August high and deeper into official "correction" territory.

The latest swoon, which knocked the S&P 500 down more than 3 percent Wednesday, signaled to many Wall Street pros that the decline was entering a new, more dangerous phase. There's growing concern now that this decline is more than a garden variety pullback, or drop of 5 percent to 9.99 percent, and could morph into a drop of 10 percent or more for the broad market.

"With the big sell-off today, the market may have moved from pullback into correction territory," says Nick Sargen, chief economist and senior investment advisor for Fort Washington Investment Advisors.

After Wednesday's rout, the S&P was 9.4 percent below its Sept. 20 record and the Dow was 8.4 percent lower than its Oct. 3 all-time high. Both of the closely watched indexes are now down less than 1 percent for the year.

The Dow fell 608 points, or 2.4 percent, to 24,583.

Fears about the economy, earnings

The sharp, swift decline has been sparked by fears that the U.S. economy and corporate earnings will start to slow due to trade disputes, more interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve and slowing growth in China, the world's second-largest economy.

"This is a correction," said Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at money management firm Baird. "The question is does it lead to a bear market," or a decline of more than 20 percent,

Technology stocks and media and communications companies accounted for most of the selling. AT&T sank after reporting weak subscriber numbers, and chipmaker Texas Instruments fell sharply after reporting slumping demand.

Banks, health care and industrial companies also took heavy losses.

Disappointing quarterly results and outlooks weighed on the market, stoking investors' jitters over future growth in corporate profits. Bond prices continued to rise, sending yields lower.

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"You've seen more discouraging (company) commentary this quarter than you have the last two," said Tom Martin, senior portfolio manager with Globalt Investments. "You're really starting to get more of a groundswell of caution. There's some concern about the fourth quarter and what that's going to look like."

Investors were weighing the latest batch of company results in the busiest week of the quarterly earnings calendar.

S&P 500 companies are expected to deliver 22 percent earnings growth for the third quarter, with every sector except communications services – which includes Walt Disney, AT&T, Netflix and Google parent Alphabet – expected to show earnings growth, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

About 24 percent of the companies in the S&P 500 had reported third-quarter results as of Wednesday. Of those, 57 percent delivered earnings and revenue results that topped Wall Street's forecasts.

Disappointing results

Even so, traders are concerned about future growth amid rising inflation, interest rates and uncertainty over trade. Some companies, including Caterpillar and 3M, have reported disappointing results and warned of rising costs related to tariffs related to the U.S.-China trade dispute.

Among the big companies slated to release quarterly results, this week are Microsoft, Amazon and Colgate-Palmolive.

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Betta

It's just the market doing a correction. It's normal for that type of game.

PeterS

Snip>>The latest swoon, which knocked the S&P 500 down more than 3 percent Wednesday, signaled to many Wall Street pros that the decline was entering a new, more dangerous phase. There's growing concern now that this decline is more than a garden variety pullback, or drop of 5 percent to 9.99 percent, and could morph into a drop of 10 percent or more for the broad market.

It doesn't sound very normal to the experts which is the reason for the posting...

woodguru

2007/2008 was "just a correction"...and yes the market is due for a correction that may be more severe than that one.

The Trump administration has been doing a multitude of things that were inevitably going to affect the market and economy...

...but it's Obama's fault, he had screwed things up so bad that not even Trump could save them.
...or the market is very nervous about the idea of dems taking control of the house...that could do it.