Wall Street’s S&P 500 index fell 2.4 per cent, pushing it more than 20 per cent below an all-time high set in January, a decline identified commonly as a bear market. The gauge of US stocks had briefly entered a bear market in late May, before rebounding off its lows.
Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that tends to react to broader market sentiment, traded below $24,000 , having tumbled almost 20 per cent since Friday. “I think with this latest [inflation] number the Fed is really going to go for it and this will cause an economic slowdown,” said Julian Howard, lead investment director for multi-asset solutions at fund manager GAM. “It’s all looking pretty ugly in the short term and there is nowhere really to escape from it, apart from going into cash for now.”
“There is very little chance of the Fed pivoting to support financial markets until there is a trend of very meaningful economic disappointments,” said Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors. The yield on Italy’s 10-year bond rose 0.19 percentage points to 3.94 per cent, having more than quadrupled since mid-December. This came after the European Central Bank last week paved the way for its first interest rate rise in more than a decade.