美国国家公共电台 NPR Another Rout In The Stock Market, As Dow Drops More Than 1,000 Points

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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

U.S. stocks fell sharply again today. For the second time this week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than a thousand points, 4.1 percent. NPR's John Ydstie reports that the market is still trying to find its footing after a similar meltdown on Monday.

JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE¹: The market did regained² close to half its deep Monday loss on Tuesday. And on Wednesday, it recorded a smaller loss. But today, just after the opening bell, it headed down sharply. Several attempts to rally failed, and it dived steeply in the final hour of the session, ending down nearly 1,033 points.

DAVID KOTOK: Selling is now overdone³.

YDSTIE: That's David Kotok, chairman of Cumberland Advisors⁴.

KOTOK: This stock market sell-off has now corrected prices back to the level that preceded the passage of the tax bill.

YDSTIE: Enthusiasm about a corporate⁵ tax cut had helped drive the stock market up a whopping 7 percent in January to a record high. Lots of market analysts⁶ and investors⁷ feared that the market had become overvalued. And today, many said the panic selling was a sign of those fears playing out. Today's losses put stocks in what experts call correction territory - technically⁸ speaking, a loss of 10 percent or more. Kotok says his firm is now strategically buying stocks again. But, he says, there are still valid⁹ concerns weighing on the market.

KOTOK: It's the near-term questions about the Federal Reserve, and it's the near term questions about interest rate policy that are impacting the market negatively.

YDSTIE: The near-term questions about the Federal Reserve revolve¹⁰ around whether it will raise interest rates more quickly in response to an economy that appears to be gaining strength. But Kotok says it's difficult to answer that question because there are several open seats on the Fed's governing board, and there's no way to know the views of the people who will ultimately fill those seats. That makes the market nervous.

But even without added moves by the Fed, rates on the 10-year U.S. Treasury¹¹, a benchmark for consumer rates, have risen sharply. Those rising rates create a more negative environment for stocks. And some analysts have blamed deficit¹² concerns for the plunge¹³ in the market this week, including hundreds of billions being added to the deficits¹⁴ by the pending¹⁵ two-year budget deal in Congress. John Ydstie, NPR News, Washington.