New York May 20 2022: The benchmark S&P 500 index (.SPX) is trading down 20% from its Jan. 3 record close in volatile trading on Friday, as investors fretted over the impact of rising inflation on earnings and the fallout of interest rate hikes on economic growth.
A close of 20% or more below that level will confirm the S&P 500 is in a bear market for the first time since the 2020 Wall Street plunge brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq (.IXIC) is already in a bear market, down 30.7% from its record close in November 2021.
Ten of the 11 major S&P sectors declined, with consumer discretionary (.SPLRCD) and industrials (.SPLRCI) down 3.5% and 2.2%, respectively.
Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Google-owner Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) and Tesla (TSLA.O) slid between 2.5% and 9.9%, weighing the most on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq. Both the indexes had climbed above 1% in morning trading.
Shares of Deere & Co (DE.N) tumbled 12.1% and were the biggest drag on the industrial sector after the heavy equipment maker posted downbeat quarterly revenue.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are set for their seventh straight week of losses, their longest losing streak since the end of the dotcom bubble in 2001.
The Dow (.DJI) is on track for its eighth consecutive weekly decline, its longest since 1932 during the Great Depression.
The three major indexes are down between 15.1% and 28.6% so far this year as investors adjust to supply-chain snarls, lockdowns in China, geopolitical uncertainty stemming from the Ukraine conflict and the U.S. Federal Reserve raising rates.
The S&P index recorded one new 52-week high and 47 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 10 new highs and 285 new lows.
