Dow tumbles 500 points after weaker-than-expected consumer sentiment, UnitedHealth decline: Live updates

Stocks pulled back on Friday, as a mix of weak consumer sentiment data and a decline in UnitedHealth stock added further pressure to what has been a rocky week for Wall Street.

The S&P 500 traded 1% lower, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 573 points, or 1.3%. The Nasdaq Composite slipped 1.4%. The 30-stock Dow has tumbled more than 2% over the past two days.

UnitedHealth dropped 8% to weigh on the Dow, after The Wall Street Journal reported that the insurer is under investigation by the Justice Department. The decline put the stock on pace for its worst day since March 2020.

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index fell to 64.7 in January, a decline of 10% and a steeper drop than expected as consumers feared  higher inflation ahead. The 5-year inflation outlook in the survey was 3.5%, the highest since 1995.

“All of this is definitely creaking at the edges, and the data is also getting softer,” said Tom Fitzpatrick, managing director at R.J. O’Brien and Associates. “It’s still early (and being early is the same as wrong), but looking at these things and the way fixed income is trading is suggesting things are not as rosy as people thought.”

Traders are coming off a losing session in which the Dow shed 450 points. The S&P 500 lost 0.4% and retreated from its recent all-time highs, while the Nasdaq Composite fell nearly 0.5%.

Investors pointed to a smattering of reasons behind the market’s sell-off, including a decline of 6.5% for retail giant Walmart‘s on Thursday after a weaker-than-expected outlook. Shares pulled back a further 3% on Friday and are down more than 9% this week. Other catalysts for pressure on the market this week also include lingering inflationary concerns and declines in shares of Palantir.

For the week, the S&P 500 is about 1% lower, while the Dow and Nasdaq have lost 2% and 1.6%, respectively.