NEW YORK -- Stocks fell worldwide on Thursday after Russia's attack of Ukraine sent fear coursing through markets and upped the pressure on the high inflation already squeezing the global economy.
Increases in energy and food prices could amplify worries about inflation, which in January hit its hottest level in the United States in a couple generations, and what the Federal Reserve will do in turn to rein it in. The Fed looks certain to remove the super-low interest rates that investors love, which helped catapult financial markets and the economy out of their coronavirus-caused plunge. The only question has been how quickly and how aggressively the Fed will move, starting next month.
The Fed was already saddled with the incredibly difficult task of raising interest rates enough to stamp out high inflation but not so much as to choke the economy into a recession. Strategists at Evercore ISI said that risk still remains, and has become even more complicated by the attack on Ukraine, but that it's"substantially greater in Europe relative to the US."
The Nasdaq composite, which is full of big tech stocks, slipped 0.1% after paring an earlier loss of 3.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 591 points, or 1.8%, to 32,540, as of 11:40 a.m. Eastern time.
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