NEW YORK: Wall Street’s main indexes fell for the third straight session on Wednesday, as a steep fall in cryptocurrencies and fears over inflation pushed investors away from riskier assets.
Bitcoin and ether were on track to post their largest one-day loss since March last year, in the wake of China’s move to ban financial and payment institutions from providing cryptocurrency services.
Crypto-exchange operator Coinbase Global fell 5.6%, bitcoin bank Silvergate Capital Corp shed 3.0% and miners Riot Blockchain and Marathon Digital Holdings were down 7.5% and 9.0%, respectively.
Tesla Inc, which has invested in the digital currency, dropped 4.2%, while payments companies Mastercard, Square and PayPal that accept crypto payments fell between 0.6% and 3.2%.
All 11 major S&P sectors dropped, with financials and materials leading declines. The CBOE volatility index, a measure of investor anxiety, jumped 2.5 points to 23.82.
Shares of Lowe’s fell 2.3% and Target rose 4.7%.
At 11:48 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 414.91 points, or 1.22%, at 33,645.75, the S&P 500 was down 44.22 points, or 1.07%, at 4,083.61, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 115.69 points, or 0.87%, at 13,187.95.
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