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U.S. stock benchmarks on Monday capped a topsy-turvy month with a powerful flourish higher. which helped to avert the sharpest January decline on record for the Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
Strategists attributed some of Monday’s buys to a hunt for bargains among the beaten-down names.
Markets broadly have been wrestling with the prospect of tighter monetary policy, which is forcing a massive repricing of the shares of once-highly flying technology and growth-oriented companies.
January’s bout of turbulence has been catalyzed by a surge in inflation and labor shortages that have prompted the Federal Reserve to accelerate plans for ending a prolonged period of easy-money that has helped to foster speculative buying.
- The Nasdaq Composite Index rose by about 470 points, or 3.4%, to around 14,240, on a preliminary basis
-
The S&P 500 index
SPX,
+1.89%
closed 84 points, or 1.9%, to about 4,515. -
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+1.17%
climbed 406 points, or 1.2%, to 35,131. - For the month, the Dow ended down 3.3%, which was only its worst month since a 3.7% decline in November. The S&P 500, meanwhile, closed 5.3% lower and the Nasdaq Composite ended January down 8.98%; It was the worst monthly decline for both of those indexes since March of 2020, the height of pandemic-drive selling. It also was the worst January decline for the Nasdaq Composite since a 9.89% decline in 2008.
