A collective 'ouch' could be heard as the stock market chalked up its biggest loss since June.
The Dow lost 394 points, the S&P 500 shed 53 points and the Nasdaq dropped 133 points. Traders are worried interest rates are on their way up after Friday morning remarks from Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Eric Rosengren. At a breakfast speech with a local chamber of commerce in Quincy, MA, Rosengren suggested a September rate hike is still a possibility. Something that was thought to be off the table after an underwhelming jobs report last Friday.
"My personal view, based on data that we have received to date, is that a reasonable case can be made for continuing to pursue a gradual normalization of monetary policy," he said.
Rosengren said waiting too long could lead to conditions which call for more rapid increases. The U.S. Federal Reserve meets on Sept. 20. Michael Carlin, president of Wealth Management in Scottsdale, said the bark is always worse than the bite when the Fed starts hinting at a rate hike.
"The market moves on talk," Carlin said. "So the actual news (of a hike) when it breaks tends to move the market less than the expectation leading up to it."
Stocks took the hardest hit in the sell-off. Utilities and phone stocks, which investors have sought out this year for their high dividends, fell far more than the rest of the market. AT&T slumped 3.6 percent. Energy companies, which have also gained a lot this year, took a drubbing as the price of crude oil slumped. Diamond Offshore Drilling dropped 10 percent.
