Casablanca – Following a gloomy day on Wall Street yesterday, US stock futures dipped today, wiping away gains from Wednesday’s rise.
Reacting to monthly job statistics indicating inflationary pressures that had prompted the central bank to tighten monetary policy, Wall Street experienced its worst day on Thursday since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis.
As a result, futures contracts tracking the benchmark S&P 500 stock index fell 0.6% ahead of the opening bell in New York, while those following the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 were down 0.8%.
The swings came after a brutal day in US markets overnight, as investors fretted that fast rate hikes may trigger a recession.
The Nasdaq Composite stock index fell 5% on Thursday, its largest one-day slump since June 2020, causing traders to drop shares in favored growth businesses such as Tesla and Apple.
Amazon and Apple were hit the hardest on Thursday, falling 7.5% and 5.5%, respectively.
The Dow Jones industrial average, on the other hand, fell by 1,120 points (3.3%), while the S&P 500 dropped 3.7%.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the Dow plummeted 1,191 points, marking the greatest decline since the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008.
Shares of major technological businesses, including Alphabet, which owns Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Tesla, and Amazon, have plummeted.
Although the 2020 plunge may have matched some of the most catastrophic dips since the Great Depression in 1929, this current Wall Street drop is the worst showing for US markets in a year.
