The Dow closed down more than 200 points, falling for the second week in a row

Stocks fell on Friday, building on year-end selling, as fears of a recession grow as the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 281.76 points, or 0.85%, to 32,920.46 points. The S&P 500 fell 1.11%, to 3,852.36. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.97%, to 10,705.41.

And the indicators achieved for the second consecutive week of losses. The S&P 500 fell 2.08% for the week, putting its December losses at 5.58%, as hopes of a year-end rally faded. The Dow Jones and Nasdaq fell by 1.7% and 2.7%, respectively.

Trading was particularly volatile on Friday with a large number of options expiring. There was $2.6 trillion worth of index options expiring, the highest amount “relative to stock market volume in nearly two years,” according to Goldman Sachs. At session lows, the Dow fell 547.63 points before paring some of those losses.

The sell-off was massive, with three stocks down for every gainer on the New York Stock Exchange. At one point, there were only 10 S&P 500 names in positive territory. the Real estate and consumer appreciation were the biggest lagging sectorsdown nearly 3% and 1.7%, respectively.

Stocks fell this week in the wake of Raising the Fed interest rate by 50 basis points On Wednesday – the highest rate in 15 years. The central bank said it will continue to raise interest rates through 2023 to 5.1%, a larger figure than previously expected.

After the policy update, the Dow It fell 142 points on WednesdayAnd the Thursday fell 764 pointsand fell further on Friday.

“At the beginning of the week, we had hope, given the very weak CPI number, that we could expect the Fed, and perhaps other central banks in the world, to be less hawkish,” said Bouquet Capital founder Kim Forrest.

“But because they haven’t, and they had some hard words to investors and consumers alike that they were really focused on bringing inflation down quickly, that took away a lot of our hope for a soft landing,” Forrest added.

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