An ugly Friday for global equities led to a sharply lower start for Wall Street, as investors eye a potential retest of crucial support on the price charts at the June lows.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
in fact, was down 390 points or 1.3%, at 29,687, trading below its June 17 closing low of 29,888.78, and leaving the blue-chip gauge not far off the threshold for entering a bear market. A finish at or below 29,439.72 would mark a 20% fall from the DJIA’s record close of 36,799.65 set on Jan. 4, which would meet the widely used definition of a bear market.
The big question, however, remains around the broader S&P 500 index
SPX,
and the potential for the more closely followed large-cap benchmark to take out its June 16 closing low at 3,666.67 or its June intraday low just below 3,637. The S&P 500 was down 65 points, or 1.7% near 3,693, after ending Thursday at 3,757.99, up 2.5% from the June 16 closing low.
Global equities fell sharply Friday, with U.S. stock suffering steep losses on Wall Street when the market opened. The Federal Reserve earlier this week delivered another outsize interest rate hike and signaled it would drive rates higher than market participants had previously anticipated. A number of other global central banks also delivered rate increases this week, underlining investor worries about the economic outlook.
