U.S. stocks sank Wednesday as investors hobbled toward the end of a gruesome 2022.
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) slumped 0.4%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) shed around 150 points, or 0.5%. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) also declined 0.5%.
Equities began the holiday-shortened week on a down beat, with the S&P posting a 0.4% loss and the Dow closing just 0.1% above the flatline. Technology stocks dragged the Nasdaq down 1.5%. Losses were led by an 11% slide for Tesla (TSLA) that sent shares to their lowest close since August 2020.
Tesla’s tailspin came after Reuters reported Tuesday that the electric carmaker will reduce output at its Shanghai factory in January, adding to woes from a separate report by Reuters over the weekend that said Tesla would suspend production a day earlier than planned at its Shanghai Gigafactory over rising COVID-19 infections in China.
Tuesday’s losses bring Tesla down 70% from its November 2021 all-time high, with declines intensifying over the past couple of months over concerns around CEO Elon Musk’s management of social media platform Twitter. Shares rose 4% on Wednesday.
U.S. and global stocks are on pace for their worst drop since the 2008 financial crisis. Pessimism around the outlook for financial markets and the economy amid a backdrop of rising interest rates and fears a recession is underway have thrown a wrench in prospects for the seasonal year-end rally markets stocks typically experience at the end of December.
Investors’ cautiousness over the year ahead also outweighed a move by China to ease travel restrictions this January as the world’s second largest economy further reopens after three years of zero-COVID protocols.
“The question is no longer about the speed with which China reopens,” China Beige Book International Managing Director Shehzad Qazi told Yahoo Finance Live on Tuesday. “The real question now is how quickly can Beijing undertake the policies that are necessary for it to gain control of the virus?”
“We haven’t hit the peak of COVID cases — that is still ahead of us — which means that some of the bad news is still ahead of us, and until we are past that point, we can’t really start talking about an economic recovery.”
Elsewhere in markets, oil retreated after climbing on demand expectations from China’s loosening of COVID curbs and the reopening of U.S. refineries after this week’s winter storm closures. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were trading just below $80 per barrel Wednesday morning.
U.S. Treasury yields also took a breather Wednesday after charging higher the previous day. The U.S. dollar index was little changed.
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Alexandra Semenova is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @alexandraandnyc
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