Dow tumbles nearly 900 points, Nasdaq suffers worst day since 2022 as recession fears erupt
A three-week market sell-off intensified on Monday, with investors worried that tariff policy uncertainty would tip the economy into a recession, something President Donald Trump did not rule out over the weekend in an interview.

The S&P 500 shed 2.7%, touching its lowest level since September at one point and closing at 5,614.56. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite
saw the sharpest decline of the major averages, falling 4% for its worst session since September 2022 and closing at 17,468.33. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 890.01 points, or 2.08%, ending at 41,911.71.

The S&P 500 is off 8.7% from its all-time high reached Feb. 19, and the Nasdaq Composite is off nearly 14% from its recent high. A 10% decline is considered a correction on Wall Street.

The losses worsened as the day went on, but the major averages came off their session lows just before the close.

The "Magnificent Seven" cohort — once the stars of this bull market — led the declines Monday as investors dumped the group for perceived safer plays. Tesla tumbled 15% for its worst day since 2020, while Alphabet and Meta fell more than 4%. AI darling Nvidia
lost 5%. Palantir, another once-loved stock by retail traders, was down 10%.
Worries have been increasing about the economy in the last month, sparked initially by some soft data that appeared to be in reaction to the tariff policy back-and-forth and then fueled further by some recent comments by the White House.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday told CNBC that there could be a "detox period" for the economy as the new administration cuts government spending. Then in an interview that aired Sunday, Trump responded to a question on Fox News about the possibility of a recession by saying the economy was going through "a period of transition."

"What I have to do is build a strong country," Trump said. "You can't really watch the stock market."

Goldman Sachs slashed its economic growth forecast in recent days because of the potential tariff impact.

"We are in the throes of a manufactured correction," said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research. "I say manufactured because it's really based in response to the new administration's tariff programs, or at least threats of tariffs, and what kind of an impact that will have on the economy."
Signs of investors taking off risk were evident everywhere on Wall Street. The Cboe Volatility index, a measure of trader fear, jumped to the highest since December. Bitcoin tumbled back below $80,000 and Treasury yields declined.

The declines in the S&P 500 would have been worse were it not for a rotation into some more defensive areas of the market that have steady revenue and pay a dividend. Mondelez and Johnson & Johnson ended the day slightly higher.

Source: CNBC