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The S&P 500 fell Thursday as the benchmark inched closer to a bear market. Investors continued to dump equities on fears Federal Reserve rate hikes to fight rapid inflation would tip the economy into a recession.
The Dow Jones Industrials had made progress Thursday, but sagged 236.94 points by the close to 31.253.13.
The S&P 500 lost another 22.89 points to 3,900.79.
The index is teetering on bear market territory sitting about 18% below its record reached in January.
The NASDAQ Composite weakened from gains earlier in the session, losing 29.66 points to 11,388.50.
The S&P 500 and NASDAQ are both down more than 3% for the week, while the Dow has lost 2.9%. Those losses were driven in part by back-to-back quarterly reports from Target and Walmart that showed higher fuel costs and restrained consumer demand hurting results amid the hottest inflation in decades.
Even after a 24% drop on Wednesday, Target shares were lower again Thursday by 5.1%.
Cisco was the latest major company to plunge on results with the tech bellwether down 13.7% on Thursday. Cisco said after the bell Wednesday that quarterly revenue fell short of analysts’ expectations and it warned revenue would disappoint in the current quarter.
On the other hand, a rebound in some tech stocks boosted the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ at various points during Thursday trading. Shares of Synopsys gained 10.3% in Thursday trading after the software company posted an earnings beat. Shares of cloud company Datadog jumped 9.6%.
Nvidia and Amazon also closed into the green Thursday.
Meanwhile, U.S. weekly jobless claims rose to 218,000 for the week ending May 14, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday, the latest hint that economic growth is slowing.
Treasury prices gained ground, lowering yields to 2.85% from Wednesday’s 2.88%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices regained $1.71 to $111.30 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices recovered $24.10 to $1,840 U.S. an ounce.
