Stocks Hit by Biggest Selloff Since August Crash: Markets Wrap
- US manufacturing activity contracts for a fifth straight month
- Companies rush into US bond market in busiest day on record
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Stocks posted their worst day since the Aug. 5 market meltdown, with the S&P 500 falling more than 2%, as growth and monetary anxieties combined to torch risky assets much as they did a month earlier.
Just as in the August episode, tech got hit the hardest, with Nvidia Corp. driving a plunge in chipmakers. And the parallels don’t stop there. The yen jumped, a closely watched manufacturing gauge again missed forecasts, and oil plummeted on concern about tepid global demand. Wall Street’s “fear gauge” - the VIX - soared. Treasury yields tumbled, with traders keeping their bets on an unusually large half-point Federal Reserve rate cut this year.