Investors are growing worried that global economic growth is cooling and that the U. S. could slip into a recession in the next few years.
NEW YORK – Stocks went into another slide Thursday in what is shaping up as the worst December on Wall Street since the depths of the Great Depression, with prices dragged down by rising fears of a recession somewhere on the horizon.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 464 points, bringing its losses to more than 1,700 since last Friday. The broader S&P 500 index continued its slump, too, and is down 10.6 percent this month alone, with six days of trading to go.
“This is the classic shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later market,” said Scott Wren, senior global equity strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
Stocks usually end the year with a flourish, and December is usually the best month of the year for the market. But this month has been dismal. Without a decent rally, this could be the worst December since 1931.
The S&P 500 is almost 16 percent below the peak it reached in late September. It is on track for its biggest one-month loss since February 2009 and its first losing year in a decade. (The index took tiny losses in 2011 and 2015 but ended those years higher once dividends were included.
