Any ideas of a pre- “Santa Claus” rally on Wall Street faded very quickly today as stocks suffered heavy losses, while investors continue to ponder “if and when” the Fed will raise interest rates possibly next month. At one point today the Dow was down 300 points while the NASDAQ was off more than %1.9 percent. The Dow closed down over 251 points while the S&P 500 fell into negative numbers for the first time this year. Robert Pavlik, chief market strategist at Boston Private Wealth told CNBC:
“I think the market’s a little bit more focused on the Fed moving on rates and the pace going forward. … Additional rate hikes may be coming and the economy really isn’t that strong but for some reason the Fed thinks it is, all because of the jobs number.”
Fed Chair Janet Yellen told a committee of lawmakers on Capitol Hill today that economic conditions are falling into place for a December rate hike and that she does not see any impact from mass shootings or recent attacks around the world on the U.S. economy, but added the terror attacks could have an effect on the economy in the future. Yellen spoke shortly after the European Central Bank (ECB) said that it was cutting a key interest rate and extending its stimulus program to raise attempts to bolster the 19 European countries that use the euro. See more from CNN here.
Here are the final numbers from Thursday, 12/3/15 on Wall Street:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 17,477.94 (-251.74/ -1.42%)
NASDAQ: 5,037.53 (-85.69 / -1.67%)
S&P 500: 2,049.62 (-29.89 / -1.44%)
