Most stocks and sectors closed on Thursday in a massive, wide market sell-off that beat media and tech stocks from big showbiz conglomerates to Amazon, Apple and Meta to Roku, Endeavour, Cinemark and the New York Times.

By the end of the trading day, the Dow 30 is down more than 3% after losing more than 1,100 points (and more than 1,200 at its low for the day). The Nasdaq was the hardest hit, down 5%, with the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 down 3.6% and 4.87% respectively. Stocks and bonds were both down.

The markets have been very volatile. Major indexes rallied sharply yesterday as the Federal Reserve announced a half-percentage-point hike in interest rates – the biggest in two decades – to curb runaway inflation that had spiked not seen since 1981. Inflation, along with the Russian-Ukrainian war, supply chain issues and the persistence of Covid have rattled investor sentiment this year in recent weeks.

Today, market euphoria has given way to fear. Fed chief Jerome Powell must be extremely adept at juggling interest rate hikes, which are cooling the economy, and the risk of recession. Earnings season is also underway with mixed numbers coming from all sectors including media.

In a more than ten-to-one day down to push stocks higher, technology was thrown off course. Snap plunged almost 10%. Netflix and Amazon fell 8%, Roku and Meta 7%, Apple 6%, Google 5%.

In the media, Endeavor fell 8%. AMC Networks, which reported earnings this morning, fell 6%, as did Dish. AMC and Cinemark fell more than 6%.

Larger capitalization names help best. Warner Bros. Discovery closed 4%; Disney and Comcast were both down 3%, Fox and Paramount less than 2%.

Etsy plunged 17%, eBay 12%. The New York Times fell 9%.

Outliers included Charter, which shrugged off the decline to close up 1.75%. Twitter too, finally capitalizing on Elon Musk’s impending takeover, closed up 2.75%.

AFTER