It Was a Brutal Day on Wall Street

Major indexes had been on track to score a winning week, and then Friday happened. The Dow plunged 981 points to 33,811—its worst day since 2020—while the S&P 500 fell 121 points to 4,271, and the Nasdaq fell 335 points to 12,839. The losses were, respectively, 2.8%, 2.7%, and 2.5%. CNBC takes note of the streaks: This marks four straight weekly declines for the Dow—and nine of its last 11—and three straight for the benchmark S&P. A slew of disappointing earnings results (HCA Healthcare, Verizon, the Gap, Snap, etc.) combined with continued expectation that the Federal Reserve will tighten policy did the damage, reports the Wall Street Journal.

“The market is finally internalizing and factoring in the reality that the Fed really means what it says and it’s not going to back down,” Tim Courtney of Exencial Wealth Advisors tells the Journal. “Somebody had a saying, and it’s pretty good: ‘You don’t fight the Fed when the Fed is fighting inflation.’” This week, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell signaled the central bank would likely raise rates by half a percentage point at its May meeting. (More stock market stories.)