Sell-Off Resumes as Major Indexes Sink

One day after a big rally, the stock market had a pretty rough day. The Dow fell 348 points, or 1%, to 33,027; the S&P fell 56 points, or 1.4%, to 3,822; and the Nasdaq fell 233 points, or 2.1%, to 10,476. As bad as that sounds, it might have been much worse. CNBC notes that the Dow was down more than 800 points at one point Thursday morning. The sour mood on Wall Street was chalked up to a familiar culprit: worries that the Fed will continue raising rates, this time because of two new economic reports.

One showed that employers laid off fewer workers than expected last week, and another showed that the economy grew at an unexpectedly strong pace (3.2%) from July through September, per the AP. Though both reports delivered good news about the economy, the Fed may see the robust data as evidence that inflation will continue to run high. Technology shares, as reflected in the tech-heavy Nasdaq, led the losses, with semiconductor companies such as Lam Research and Advanced Micro Devices down between 7% and 10%. (More stock market stories.)