(AFP)
NEW YORK – Wall Street stocks ended an ugly session sharply lower Thursday on rising worries about a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine as markets shrugged off good earnings from Walmart and others.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 1.8 percent, a loss of more than 620 points, at 34,312.03.
The broad-based S&P 500 fell 2.1 percent to 4,380.26, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index slumped 2.9 percent to 13,716.72.
Stocks were in the red all day, but losses deepened as more officials warned of attack.
Appearing at the United Nations in New York, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said intelligence showed Moscow could order an assault on its neighbor in the “coming days.”
US President Joe Biden said “every indication we have is that they’re prepared to go into Ukraine,” while adding that a diplomatic solution was still possible.
Edward Moya of foreign exchange trading platform Oanda said the risks of war “appear to be rising,” irking markets already leery of the Federal Reserve’s expected interest rate hikes.
“Wall Street is feeling very jittery as it looks to the left and sees intensifying geopolitical risks with the Ukraine situation and then it looks to the right and sees the potential for aggressive Fed tightening,” Moya said.
Among individual companies, Walmart jumped 4.0 percent after reporting stronger-than-expected results following robust sales growth in its US division.
Cisco Systems rose 2.8 percent following solid results, while Nvidia plunged 7.6 percent as it reported results that topped expectations, but not enough to boost a stock that is already seen as generously valued.
DoorDash surged 10.7 percent after it published higher-than-expected earnings and said it expects strong demand in 2022, despite easing pandemic restrictions.