Shares continue to slump as fears about the economy and earnings grip Wall Street

David Gura

April 26, 2022 / 3:07 pm

caption: Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City on Monday. Stocks continued a recent sell-off over economic and earnigns fears.

The sell-off continues in Wall Street.

On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by more than 800 points, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slumped almost 4 percent lower, sinking further into bear territory.

All three indexes are on track to end the month with sizeable losses, with the Nasdaq set to end April down more than 10%.

There is plenty of cause for alarm on Wall Street at a time when investors were already worried about sharply higher interest rates as the Federal Reserve fights inflation.

Shares also tumbled late last week after Fed Chair Jerome Powell signaled policy makers could raise rates by half a percentage point at the central bank's next meeting in early May, or double the rate hike it delivered in March.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has also led to concerns about food and energy supplies, further ratcheting up inflation fears.

And now, lockdowns in China amid a spike in COVID cases are raising concerns about global supply chains, while some of the world's largest companies have reported disappointing earnings.

After the closing bell on Tuesday, Alphabet announced its profits were lower than Wall Street expected, thanks in part to higher costs, and Microsoft reported revenue that was slightly higher than anticipated.

More than 150 publicly traded companies are reporting earnings results this week for the first few months of the year, including some of the biggest names in tech.