Stock market has worst day of the year

CHICAGO (NewsNation) — After celebrating news Wednesday that the Federal Reserve would be raising short-term interest rates to .50% instead of 0.75%, the market decided that wasn’t such good news after all, with the Dow Jones plunging more than 1,000 points Thursday, erasing all the previous day’s gains and then some.

It’s a stunning reversal as fears about a recession overcame hopes for a continuing economic recovery.

“It seems like Wall Street finally woke up a little bit to Federal Chairman Jerome Powell’s full message yesterday,” finance reporter Sylvan Lane told NewsNation’s “Rush Hour” on Thursday.

This plunge means hedge funds and, more importantly to most of us, pension funds are both experiencing dramatic drops in their holding value.

So even if you aren’t in the market — and most Americans aren’t — this is still very impactful. And if you are, this is an especially very tough day, specifically for tech stocks, which got clobbered in the Nasdaq, dropping 5 percent.  

This incredible volatility is being driven by uncertainty about future economic growth and that uncertainty is driven by record-high inflation, which has already taken a heavy toll on businesses and consumers, especially the poor and middle-class. 

The market losses started slowly Thursday morning and built up to a crescendo later in the day.

Thursday night, as they try to read the tea leaves, many analysts are warning of rising recession risks, as the Federal Reserve will likely have a tough time aggressively raising interest rates without hurting growth.

That said, Powell signaled confidence in the strength of the economy overall and its ability to withstand the tough medicine the fed has in store.

Wall Street showed Thursday that it is not at all convinced.