Dow falls but narrowly avoids confirming bear market status

Sept 23 (Reuters) – The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell to its lowest level since November 2020 on Friday, but narrowly missed the mark and ended more than 20% below its Jan. 4 close.

A Dow close below 29,439.72 would have confirmed a bear market that started from that record, according to a widely used definition. read more The Dow fell 486.27 points, or 1.62%, to end at 29,590.41.

The Dow is the only one of the three major indexes that does not have bear market status. The S&P 500 (.SPX) hit the grim milestone in June and the Nasdaq (.IXIC) in March.

The renewed selling pressure in markets came during a week that saw the US central bank raise interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point for the third time in a row and a pledge to keep it going until inflation is under control.

It’s been a tumultuous year for Wall Street, plagued by worries about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an energy crisis in Europe and the end of easy monetary policy globally.

The S&P 500 has lost 23% this year and the Nasdaq has lost 31%.

The last time the three indices retreated so sharply was in 2020 during the height of the pandemic sell-off.

Increased fears of an economic slowdown in the US next year and its impact on corporate profits have prompted brokerages to downgrade their year-end targets for the S&P 500. read more

(This story is being refiled to fix a typo in the headline)

Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Shinjini Ganguli, Maju Samuel and Diane Craft

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