Wall Street tumbles on worries about the economy; Dow drops more than 600 points
LA TimesU.S. stocks tumbled Tuesday to their worst day since an early August sell-off, as a week full of updates on the economy got off to a discouragingly weak start. Stocks of oil and gas companies were some of the market’s biggest losers after the price of crude oil fell roughly 4% on concerns about how much fuel a fragile global economy will burn. But if Friday’s report is weaker, it could drive the Fed to deliver an outsize cut of half a percentage point from the federal funds rate’s current range of 5.25% to 5.50%, Mericle said. On Wall Street, U.S. Steel fell 6.1% in its first trading after Vice President Kamala Harris said Monday that she opposed the company’s planned sale to Japan’s Nippon Steel Corp. The subdued performance could bolster criticism that Nvidia and other major tech stocks simply soared too high in Wall Street’s frenzy around artificial intelligence technology.