Top U.S. stock indexes all closed with losses on Monday as investors fretted over the state of U.S.-China trade talks and an expected looming interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 507 points, or 2.11 percent, to 23,593.05, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 2.27 percent and the broader S&P 500 sank 2.28 percent in New York trading.
Randy Frederick, vice president of trading at Charles Schwab, said the sell-off was not yet a signal that investors were losing confidence in the markets — a situation commonly referred to as a bear market — but noted it “was certainly a downturn.”
“In this environment, all the market needs to go lower is an absence of good news,” he told the Washington Examiner.
Amid a fresh round of criticism from President Trump Monday, experts say investors fear the Federal Reserve’s widely expected decision to raise interest rates after their final meeting of the year on Wednesday and, perhaps to a greater degree, what the central bank will signal about potential rate hikes in 2019.
Worries over the Trump administration’s ongoing negotiations with China on a trade deal and uncertainty surrounding an upcoming vote in January in the British Parliament on Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal are also undermining investor confidence.
A federal judge’s ruling on Friday that Obamacare is unconstitutional led to a sell-off of healthcare stocks, a typically strong performing sector. Centene was down nearly 5 percent to $121.43 per share, while Molina Healthcare, Inc. was down 9 percent, and Anthem was down 3.23 percent.
