Wall Street Plunges on Inflation Woes Monday, Tech Stocks Lead Losses With 2.1% Drop

NEW YORK (Sputnik) - Wall Street’s Big Tech sector plunged more than 2% on Monday, leading to losses across US stocks that fell sharply on fears about escalating oil prices and inflation.

The Nasdaq Composite Index, led by Big Tech names such as Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google, closed down 2.1%.

Facebook lost almost 5% at the close after a glitch across the social media giant’s platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram, which affected access for untold numbers of people.

The broad-based Dow Jones Industrial Average, comprising mostly industrial stocks, finished down 0.9%. The blue-chip S&P 500, which groups the top 500 stocks on the NYSE, closed down 1.3%.

“US stocks are lower as fiscal policy remains up in the air and high energy costs are now a given,” said Ed Moya, an analyst at New York’s OANDA.

“No one can answer how long peak supply chain constraint problems will last, global growth concerns for the upcoming quarter continue to worsen. Meanwhile, the never-ending safety net of central bank stimulus seems poised to end soon.”

Inflation has become one of the top concerns of the Biden administration as it tries to battle price pressures from bottlenecks in an economy straining to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. To deal with inflation, economists warn that the Federal Reserve might have to raise interest rates for the first time since the COVID-19 outbreak of March 2020, a move that could further hamper growth.

Wall Street plunged on Monday after oil prices broke well beyond $80 per barrel level on OPEC+’s decision to add only incrementally to its production despite the squeeze in global supplies.

Prior to Monday’s meeting of the 23-nation alliance of oil producers, there had been speculation that it could agree to add more than the 400,000 barrels per day it had committed to until the end of April.

But after a video linkup among the 13-member Saudi-led Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and a group of 10 other producers steered by Russia, the message was clear: It will be the same 400,000 bpd over the next six months, barring any change down the road.

The OPEC+ meeting also did not address demands from both the White House and India, the world’s third-largest oil importer, for more supplies aimed at curbing high pump prices for fuel.