Stocks fell on Monday as renewed concerns over the Federal Reserve's aggressive tightening campaign sparking a recession took hold over Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped nearly 500 points, while the S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq Composite fell 1.8% and 1.9%, respectively.
Here's how the market settled on Monday:
S&P 500 Index
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Nasdaq Composite Index
Driving the downward moves, a hotter-than-expected reading of November ISM Services further increased concerns that the central bank will continue its aggressive rate hiking campaign in effort to stabilize prices. The index posted a 56.5% reading, beating estimates for a reading of 53.7% and increasing by 2.1 percentage points compared to October's print.
Wall Street entered Monday's session in the aftermath of Friday's hotter-than-expected November jobs report, which showed both stronger job gains and wage growth--the exact opposite of what policymakers are looking for when looking for signs that their efforts to cool inflation are working. Friday's report also showed that demand for workers is still higher than supply, rising more concerns that the Fed may take continue to raise interest rates at their current pace or keep them higher for longer.
Recent Fedspeak suggests that the central bank is gearing up to approve a 0.5 percentage point interest rate hike at their December 13-14 meeting, after four consecutive 0.75 percentage point increases. Still, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a speech last week that the central bank's "terminal rate," or the point at which the Fed stops hiking rates, likely "will need to be somewhat higher" than projected at the Fed's September meeting.
Elsewhere, Tesla
Salesforce
