Wall Street's wild ride continued Thursday as stocks traded sharply down during morning trading just one day after a historic 1,000-point rally.
The index initially plunged during the earlier parts of the day with the Dow Jones Industrial Average diving more than 600 points before rallying back later Thursday afternoon. The Dow ended up for the day by 255 points. The index has gained or lost more than 350 points in seven out of the last nine trading sessions.
The Dow's tough morning was led by losses in Apple and Microsoft. The S&P 500 lost 2.5 percent, and the NASDAQ Composite was off by 3.1 percent as tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Netflix all saw declines over the day.
Renewed trade tensions between China and the United States are being blamed for the market's loss. According to a Reuters report, President Donald Trump is considering an executive order to ban all U.S. companies from using equipment built by Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE.
The stock market has had its worst December since 1931 as traders deal with deepening fears of a recession, rising interest rates and issues related to the trade war between the U.S. and China. Reports of record spending by consumers from MasterCard and Amazon helped spur yesterday's massive rally.
Tech companies weren't the only ones feeling the heat today. Companies like Caterpillar, Boeing and Deere, all dropped more than 1.5 percent by midday trading. Commodities like oil, which rose by 9 percent on Wednesday, was down again Thursday by 2.8 percent.
Most economists agree that the American economy remains strong and expect solid, if not slower growth coming in 2019. Unemployment remains at historic lows and the U.S. GDP grew by 3.4 percent last quarter.
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