A Brutal Month Finally Ends on Wall Street

The only good thing that can said of this month and even this quarter on Wall Street is that it's over. Markets dropped yet again on Friday. The Dow fell 500 points, or 1.7%, to 28,725; the S&P 500 fell 54 points, or 1.5%, to 3,585; and the Nasdaq fell 161 points, or 1.5%, to 10,575. All three indexes are down about 3% for the week, notes CNBC. Bigger picture, the Dow plunged 8.8% in September and 6% for the quarter; the S&P fell 9.3% for the month and 5% for the quarter; and the Nasdaq fell 10.5% for the month and 4% for the quarter. Of note on Friday: Nike fell about 13% after saying that supply chain and inventory issues hurt sales.

Not helping the mood of investors on Friday were comments from Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard, who became the latest Fed official to make clear the central bank does not intend to ease up on rate hikes, per the AP. She said the Fed is "committed to avoiding pulling back prematurely" on its tight policies. One resulting sentiment: "At this point, it’s not a matter of if we’ll have a recession, but what type of recession it will be," said Sean Sun, portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management. (More stock market stories.)