The stock market dropped sharply on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones dropping by more than 800 points — making it the worst day since February of this year. The NASDAQ and the S&P 500 were also touched, with both markets closing more than three percent in the red.
According to a report from CNBC, technology stocks led the nosedive as the sector had its worst day since August of 2011. Amazon, Facebook, and Apple all fell by more than one
percent but Netflix took the largest punishment, dropping close to six percent.
“Those kinds of stocks had really, really bad days. And that’s actually rather overdue and sort of what you would see in a normal correction,” said Jamie Cox, Managing Partner for Harris Financial Group while speaking to Yahoo! Finance.
Cox also added that “this is a correction that needed to happen since those stocks had really gotten ahead of themselves.”
Even though tech shares have been leading the markets lately, the other sectors of the market were hit Wednesday as well. According to a report from The Motley Fool, SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF suffered an almost five percent loss before close. Further worrying the energy sector is Hurricane Michael, which prompted many drilling firms to evacuate their personnel from the Gulf of Mexico.
With rising interest rates, many consumers are deciding to pull their money out of the stock market and seek shelter in more secure investments like bonds. However, according to some experts, even bonds may not be safe from the rising rates and market volatility.
“There’s no flight to safety in bonds. That’s a sea change,” said Bleakley Advisory Group’s chief investment officer, Peter Boockvar, while speaking to CNBC.
The weakening bond market may also be signaling further declines could be on the horizon.
“The selling is a result of selling the best-performing stocks this year and it is difficult to time when that selling pressure will slow,” said JC O’Hara, MKM Partners’ chief market technician.
The news wasn’t bad for everyone though; according to a report from Reuters, the price of Gold was up on Wednesday as investors look for places to park their money. Currently, an ounce of spot gold is going for $1,194.12, which is a 0.4 percent increase. Silver was up slightly as well, now selling for $14.42 per ounce, which is a $0.03 increase according to Apmex.com.
Despite the positive gains, however, Gold is still down 13 percent from its high in April.
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