The steep selloff in Wall Street was triggered amid concerns about economic growth after two back-to-back quarterly reports from Target and Walmart stoked investor fears of rising inflation taking a bite out of corporate profits and consumer demand.
Rising inflation, the conflict in Ukraine, prolonged supply chain snarls, pandemic-related lockdowns in China and prospects of aggressive policy tightening by central banks have weighed on the markets recently, stoking concerns about a global economic slowdown.
At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index stumbled 1,164.52 points, or 3.57%, to 31,490.07. The S&P500 index declined by 165.17 points, or 4.04%, to 3,923.68. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index decreased by 566.37 points, or 4.73%, to 11,418.15.
Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE exchange by 2768 to 547 and 108 closed unchanged. In the NASDAQ, 1001 issues advanced, 3691 issues declined, and 264 issues unchanged.
All 11 major S&P 500 sector indexes declined, with bottom performing issues were consumer discretionary (down 6.6%), consumer staples (down 6.38%), information technology (down 4.74%), industrials (down 3.75%), and materials (down 3.18%).
Retail stocks lead the markets lower on the day, with Target (TGT) tumbling nearly 25% after the discount retailer reported weaker than expected quarterly earnings because of higher costs for fuel and compensation.
This follows Walmart on Tuesday posting earnings that fell short of expectations as it too cited higher fuel and labor costs. Walmart shares ended Tuesday lower by 11%. They dropped another 6.8% on Wednesday.
Other retailers stocks also took a hit. Amazon's dropped 7.2%, Best Buy's fell 10.5%, Dollar General's fell 11.1%, and Dollar Tree's declined 14.4%. Macy's dropped by 10.7%, while shares of Kohl's fell 11%.
Housing stocks also saw significant weakness on the day, after report released by the Commerce Department showed a modest decrease in new residential construction in the month of April.
Rate-sensitive Big Tech and growth companies such as Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc, Google owner-Alphabet Inc, Meta Platforms, Tesla Inc and Amazon.com fell between 1.7% and 4%
ECONOMIC NEWS: The Commerce Department latest data showed housing starts edged down by 0.2% to an annual rate of 1.724 million from a revised rate of 1.728 million in March. The slight drop in housing starts came as single-family housing starts plunged by 7.3% to an annual rate of 1.100 million. Meanwhile, the report showed building permits, an indicator of future housing demand, tumbled by 3.2% to an annual rate of 1.819 million from a revised rate of 1.879 million in March.
Among Indian ADR, Dr Reddy's Labs fell 2.38% to $49.98, HDFC Bank fell 2.83% to $52.90, Tata Motors shed 5.16% to $26.11, Wipro sank 4.3% to $6.01, and INFOSYS fell 4.23% to $18.78. WNS Holdings dropped 3.27% to $69.16 and ICICI Bank declined 3.25% to $17.87. Azure Power Global added 3.25% to $13.01.
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