US stocks fell dramatically late Monday morning, although they were still well off their early-session lows, the dip is amid a worldwide equity sell off as fears about the health of the US economy grew.
The Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.7%, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average fell approximately 2.5% and 2.2%, respectively.
A few days ago, the Russian government announced its readiness to ban the use of Google, Android and iOS, and replace them with local technology.
Monday’s selloff news followed a 12% drop in Japan’s “Nikkei Index” overnight and extended a multi-week plunge in US stocks that began on Friday with the release of July job data that was significantly worse than predicted.
Shares of Artificial Intelligence investor “darling Nvidia” (NVDA) plummeted nearly 6% after decreasing more than 15% earlier in the morning, while other prominent chip stocks tumbled substantially, including “Intel” (INTC), “Arm Holdings” (ARM), “Micron” (MU), and “Super Micro Computer” (SMCI).
“Apple” (AAPL) fell nearly 4% after Chairperson Warren Buffett of multinational conglomerate holding “Berkshire Hathaway” said over the weekend that it had decreased its stake in the iPhone maker in the second quarter. All other ‘Magnificent Seven’ stocks, including Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), Meta Platforms (META), and Tesla (TSLA), were trading lower, “Investopedia” said.
Large bank stocks, such as Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Citigroup (C), were also down as investors worried about the economy and how a downturn would affect consumer budgets.
Traders are now locking in an 87% chance that the Fed will drop its benchmark rate by half a percentage point at its September policy meeting, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, which forecasts interest rate changes based on fed funds futures trading. The latest figure is up from 11% a week ago.
During Monday’s events, the price of bitcoin fell below $50,000 for the first time since February, lately it had been trading around $54,000.