© Reuters. Businessmen work at the New York Inventory Exchange (NYSE) site in Metropolitan, New York, USA on September 26, 2022. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
By Noel Randewich and Shreyashi Sanyal
(Reuters) – Wall Street plunged deeper into a bear market on Tuesday, recording its lowest close in nearly two years, as Federal Reserve policymakers confirmed the urge to raise additional interest rates on food, even as they risked throwing the economy into a downturn.
The benchmark S&P 500 is down about 24% from its January 3 overshoot. Last week, the Fed signaled that major charges could end in 2023, with the index erasing the eventual favorable attributes from a summer rally and posting its lowest close since November 2020.
The S&P 500 fell in six categories in a row, its longest losing streak since February 2020.
Chart: S&P 500 in deep bear market –
In speeches on Tuesday, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard made the case for additional price hikes, while Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said central financial institutions may want to increase fees this year by at least one other stock level.
“It’s disappointing, but certainly not shocking,” said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio director at Dakota Wealth in Fairfield, Connecticut. “Individual involvement in the Fed, the rate process, the health of the economic system.”
analysts in FuGuo bank (NYSE: ) is now seeing the U.S. central financial institution adjust its target for the federal funds price to between 4.75% and 5.00% in the first quarter of 2023.
Seven of the S&P 500’s 11 sector indexes fell, with the utilities and shopping staples index down about 1.7%, mostly down.
The power sector index rose 1.2% after Sweden launched an investigation into potential sabotage after a major spill of two Russian pipelines spewed gasoline into the Baltic Sea.
Tesla (NASDAQ: ) was up 2.5% and Nvidia (NASDAQ: ) was up 1.5%, each struggling to keep the Nasdaq in constructive territory.
Merchants exchanged more than $17 billion worth of Tesla stock, more than any other.
The benchmark hit its highest level in more than 12 years amid hawkish feedback from Fed officials. [US/]
The index lost 0.43% to end at 29,134.99, while the S&P 500 lost 0.21% to end at 3,647.29.
It was up 0.25% at 10,829.50.
Questions about the success of corporate earnings amid lingering costs and a weak economy have also rattled Wall Street over the past two weeks.
In addition to the full year, analysts also lowered their S&P 500 earnings forecasts for the third and fourth quarters. For the third quarter, analysts now expect earnings per share for the S&P 500 to rise 4.6% year over year, compared with expectations for an 11.1% increase in early July.
Shares on U.S. exchanges were 11.7 billion shares, compared with 1.130 billion shares traded over the past 20 trading days.
Declining points outnumbered advancing ones by a 1.25-to-1 ratio on the NYSE; on Nasdaq, a 1.03-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted no new 52-week high and 146 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite posted 28 new highs and 502 new lows.