It took only a 10-minute speech from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Friday to clarify that monetary policy would be relentlessly tightened in the months ahead. Investors dumped stocks, sending the S&P 500 Index down 3.4% following two days of gains.
Only five stocks in the S&P 500
SPX,
were up on Friday:
| Company | Ticker | Price change – Aug. 26 | Price change – 2022 | Decline from 52-week intraday high | Date of 52-week intraday high |
| Electronic Arts Inc. |
EA, |
3.57% | 0.2% | -10.6% | 09/02/2021 |
| Molina Healthcare Inc. |
MOH, |
3.36% | 6.4% | -6.3% | 08/26/2022 |
| Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. |
TTWO, |
1.59% | -28.3% | -34.9% | 11/05/2021 |
| CF Industries Holdings Inc. |
CF, |
0.81% | 67.2% | -1.0% | 08/26/2022 |
| ConocoPhillips |
COP, |
0.04% | 55.3% | -9.6% | 06/08/2022 |
| Source: FactSet | |||||
In his speech at the Jackson Hole economic symposium Friday morning, Powell said the Federal Reserve’s actions to control inflation would bring “some pain to households and businesses.”
He also addressed speculation that indications of a softening of price increases in July might cause the Fed to slow its pace for interest-rate increases by saying he still saw “strong underlying momentum” in the U.S. economy.
Read: The Fed isn’t pivoting. Why were stock investors the last to know?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
fell 3% to close at 32,283. The Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
slumped 3.9% to 12,142.
Among the S&P 500, 43% of stocks were down at least 4% on Friday. Here are the day’s 10 worst performers, which lopped off a combined $63.8 billion in market capitalization for the session:
| Company | Ticker | Price change – Aug. 26 | Change in market cap – Aug. 26 ($mil) | Price change – 2022 | Decline from 52-week intraday high | Date of 52-week intraday high |
| 3M Co. |
MMM, |
-9.5% | -$7,758 | -27.3% | -34.5% | 08/30/2021 |
| Nvidia Corp. |
NVDA, |
-9.2% | -$41,325 | -44.7% | -53.1% | 11/22/2021 |
| HP Inc. |
HPQ, |
-8.9% | -$3,185 | -16.7% | -24.3% | 04/07/2022 |
| Align Technology Inc. |
ALGN, |
-7.5% | -$1,604 | -61.6% | -65.8% | 09/23/2021 |
| Monolithic Power Systems Inc. | -7.3% | -$1,769 | -3.4% | -17.8% | 11/22/2021 | |
| Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. |
HPE, |
-7.2% | -$1,390 | -12.7% | -22.5% | 02/10/2022 |
| Dollar Tree Inc. |
DLTR, |
-6.9% | -$2,315 | -1.3% | -21.7% | 04/21/2022 |
| ON Semiconductor Corp. |
ON, |
-6.7% | -$2,223 | 5.4% | -6.8% | 08/25/2022 |
| Zebra Technologies Corp. Class A |
ZBRA, |
-6.7% | -$1,138 | -48.2% | -49.9% | 12/10/2021 |
| V.F. Corp. |
VFC, |
-6.6% | -$1,123 | -43.8% | -47.8% | 11/16/2021 |
| Source: FactSet | ||||||
Click on the tickers for more about each company, including news that drove prices lower on Friday. Then read Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available for free on MarketWatch quote pages.
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