Wall Street Still Falling After Fed's Prediction

Wall Street tumbled again Thursday as stock prices dropped worldwide on expectations that US interest rates will stay high well into next year. Fears of a government shutdown aren't helping, either.

• The S&P 500 fell 72 points, or 1.6%, to 4,330.
• The Dow fell 370 points, or 1%, to 34,070.
• The Nasdaq fell 245 points, or 1.8%, to 13,223.

The benchmark S&P had a similar decline on Wednesday, making this its worst two-day drop in six months, notes the AP. The decline comes in the wake of the Federal Reserve suggesting Wednesday that it may cut interest rates next year by just half what it earlier predicted. Big Tech stocks again took the brunt of the pain because they're typically among the biggest victims of high rates. Amazon fell 4%, for example, and Nvidia dropped 2.6%.

Elsewhere, Cisco Systems took a hit after it said it would buy Splunk, a cybersecurity company, for roughly $28 billion in cash. Cisco fell 4%, while Splunk jumped 20.9%. On the winning side of Wall Street, FedEx rose 5% after it reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

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