Major indexes drop on September worries, upcoming data

By Chibuike Oguh

NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. stocks slumped on Tuesday, at the start of one of the market's historically worst months, ahead of data likely to influence how much the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates.

The benchmark S&P 500 index , Nasdaq and Dow are on track for their biggest daily declines since early August.

Market sentiment fell as Institute for Supply Management data on Tuesday showed U.S. manufacturing remained subdued despite a modest improvement in August from an eight-month low in July.

September is widely regarded one of the worst months for stock market performance based on data stretching back to the 1950s, said Jason Browne, president at Alexis Investment Partners in Montgomery, Texas.

"We had a weak ISM report come out this morning, but we do believe seasonality is a big factor here especially when you've had such a solid performance for the year until the end of last month," Browne said.

"Everybody is reporting about how September is such a horrible month and that tends to feed on itself."

Eight out of 11 S&P sectors fell, led by technology, energy, communication services and industrial stocks.

The so-called Magnificent Seven megacap technology stocks, which have led this year's rally, slumped, with Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA ) falling 9% and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT ) losing 1.7%.

As of 3 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 615.24 points, or 1.48%, to 40,947.84. The S&P 500 lost 111.04 points, or 1.97%, at 5,537.36 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 534.82 points, or 3.02%, to 17,178.80.

Traders are awaiting several labor market reports ahead of Friday's non-farm payrolls data for August.

The Fed's meeting later in the month will be closely observed following Chair Jerome Powell's recent support for easing monetary policy.

Odds of a 25-basis point interest rate cut are at 63%, the CME Group's (NASDAQ:CME ) FedWatch Tool showed, while those for a bigger 50 bps reduction are at 37%.



Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA ) fell 1.5% after a report said the electric vehicle maker plans to produce a six-seat variant of its Model Y car in China from late 2025.

Boeing (NYSE:BA ) lost 7.7% after Wells Fargo downgraded the planemaker's shares to "underweight" from "equal weight."

Source: Investing.com