Dow Jones backslides 330 points on Tuesday

• The Dow Jones accelerated into further losses, falling nearly 0.8%.
• Losses are concentrating in the Dow as investors second-guess Fed action.
• Continued declines in key health and tech stocks are further dragging the Dow lower.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) shed another 360 points at its lowest on Tuesday as losses accumulate in the key index and begin to gather speed. Investors have been chasing interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve (Fed) since last December, but now concerns of getting too much of a good thing are giving traders cause for a pause. The Dow recovered its footing toward the end of the US session, but still ended the day in the red by 270 points or -0.63%, chalking in a ninth straight losing session for the first time in half of a century.

The Fed is broadly expected to deliver another quarter-point rate cut on Wednesday, bringing its target rate down to the 4.25%-4.5% range. The fed funds rate peaked at 5.0%-5.5% in July of 2023, and investors clamored for interest rate cuts to provide funding relief for 13 straight months before the Fed finally delivered a jumbo 50 bps rate slash in September and followed it up with another 25 bps rate trim in November. Now investors are second-guessing Fed moves on interest rates, and questioning whether the US central bank may be moving too fast, too far in the face of recent US economic data.

According to the CNBC Fed Survey for December, some investors are beginning to pivot into an uncertain stance in the face of steeply-inflationary policy threats from incoming President Donald Trump. Roughly one-third of respondents noted that it may be time for the Fed to reassess its rate-cutting strategy. 

Stocks initially rallied on the news of a decisive Trump election win, but now those same animal spirits are beginning to wonder if the threat of global tariffs, sweeping deportation policies, and entering into unilateral trade wars with all of the US’ major trading partners at the same time may not be as positive for stock performance as many investors initially believed. Adding to the uncertainty of policy impacts, some analysts are recalling Trump’s campaign promises to renegotiate the USMCA trade deal that he initially negotiated during his first presidency.

Dow Jones news

Despite the Dow Jones holding roughly on-balance on Tuesday with about half of the index’s listed securities trading in the green, concentrated losses in household names are dragging the price-weighted board lower. Unitedhealth Group (UNH) continues to decline as public opinion of health insurance providers sinks even lower in the wake of the assassination of C-level United Health executive Brian Thompson. The same day Brian Thompson was slain, UNH shareholders celebrated windfall profits for the health company, which have been primarily perceived as coming from an associated rise in insured claims rejections at the health giant. UNH fell an additional 3.5% on Tuesday, testing $480 per share after hitting an all-time high of $630.73 in November.

Adding to the Dow’s losses was a decline in Nvidia (NVDA), which declined another 1.7% on the day and broke below $130 per share for the first time since mid-October. Investors may have concerns that Nvidia’s broad-based pivot into providing computational crunching power for the AI space may be running into issues as widespread reports of overheating in Nvidia chip solutions accumulate.

Dow Jones price forecast

The Dow Jones’ 330 point decline on Tuesday sets up the major equity index for its longest day-over-day losing streak, and the DJIA is on pace to close in the red for a ninth straight session. The Dow has pierced the 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) for the first time since late October, back when price action was testing a technical floor near the 42,000 handle.

The Dow Jones closed above 45,000 for the first time ever in early December, but a near-term backslide has seen the DJIA shed 3.8% top-to-bottom. While bearish momentum is in control of the key stock index, bidders are likely waiting in the wings for a fresh bounce off of the key 50-day EMA with an immediate price floor near the last swing low of 43,000.

Dow Jones daily chart