Fox Business host Lauren Simonetti was left stunned by a massive drop in the NASDAQ Composite Index at the start of trading Monday morning.
The NASDAQ fell on open on Monday, down over 1,000 points, recovering slightly to around 500 points in the first two hours of trading, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over 1,000 points in that same time frame, according to Yahoo Finance. Simonetti, who co-hosts “Varney and Company” with Stuart Varney, reacted with shock as Varney ran down the opening numbers from Wall Street, calling the drop “history in the making.”
WATCH:
“They’ve never been down a thousand points, ever, not even intraday on the NASDAQ,” Simonetti said after Varney listed the market changes, prompting him to ask her, “Is that true?”
“That is true,” Simonetti responded.
The S&P 500 was down over 120 points in the first two hours of trading, Yahoo Finance reported. Stocks also tumbled Friday following the release of a disappointing jobs report, with only 114,000 jobs being added in July and the unemployment rate climbing to 4.3%. Previously reported jobs numbers for May and June were also revised down.
The Federal Reserve did not cut its federal funds rate on Wednesday from its 23-year high, but chairman Jerome Powell left open the possibility of a rate cut later in the year. The vast majority of investors now predict that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by 0.5% in September as the economy shows signs of softening and recession concerns circulate, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
Inflation has also been an issue dogging the U.S. economy, with prices having climbed by over 20% since President Joe Biden took office, even as the Consumer Price Index rose by 3.0% year-over-year in June, slightly below economists’ expectations, two years after inflation hit a recent high of 9% in June 2022.
Ahead of the American stock open, Japan’s Nikkei stock index dropped 12.40% in Monday’s trading, while Taiwan’s TSEC index lost 8.35% and South Korea’s KOSPI index fell 8.77% in Monday trading.