Investors clawed their way through the market taking profits with bear-like prowess following a downgrade to a few tech companies on the hardware side of the sector earlier in the day. The sell-off quickly spread to other sectors, and all the major indices closed the day with steep declines.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.6 percent to 17,718.54 while the S&P 500 lost 1.5 percent to finish at 2,061.05 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq took it on the chin with a 2.4 percent drop to 4,876.52. Retail and apparel shares were not immune to the profit taking as the WWD Global Stock Tracker fell 1.2 percent to 115.25.
Of the 100 components in the WWD stock tracker, 78 issues declined, one was unchanged and 21 experienced increases. The decliners were of mixed sectors and included retail, vendor, beauty and accessories firms. The declines ranged from one to five percent.
The companies that posted gains were mostly companies from the Asia-Pacific region, and had closed trading earlier in the day.