U.S. Tech Stocks Lead Markets Lower on Rate Concerns

By Liz Moyer

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks fell again on Monday as investors worried about an aggressive effort by the Fed to quash inflation.

At 10:41 ET (14:41 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 241 points, or 0.7%, while the S&P 500 was down 0.7% and the NASDAQ Composite was down 0.9%.

Tech stocks were heavily battered early Monday as investors continued to be spooked by remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday. Powell indicated the central bank would do whatever it took to get inflation back in its targeted range. Rising rates hit growth stocks particularly hard.

Investors who thought the Fed might start scaling back the size of its rate increases now increasingly see another big hike. The Fed has raised rates by a 0.75 percentage point at each of its last two meetings.

The Fed is next scheduled to meet on interest rate policy in September. Later this week, investors will get data on August jobs.

Pinduoduo (NASDAQ:PDD) shares listed in the U.S. rose 22% after a positive earnings report. Covid-19 lockdowns in China kept shoppers online making purchases, Reuters reported.

Dow Inc (NYSE:DOW) fell more than 2% after a downgrade by KeyBanc, which cited commodity and European exposures.

Oil rose. Crude Oil WTI Futures was up 3.1%, to $96.17 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures crude rose 2.8%, to $101.84 a barrel. Gold Futures rose 0.1%, to $1,751.