Market check: Stocks plummet amid broad-based sell-off

Yahoo Finance's Emily McCormick examines today's market losses and volatility levels, as well as retail stocks, bitcoin's price action, and Chinese stocks.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Hey there, Dave. Well, let's kick it off with the market here because we are looking at a very tough day across the board. You can see the Dow off just around over 1,100 points right now, on track for its worst day since at least 2020. You're looking at the S&P off nearly 4%. The NASDAQ the biggest loser of the major benchmarks, off almost 5%. But again, we are really seeing a broad-based sell-off, all 11 of the S&P sectors in the red. Let's take it over to Yahoo Finance's Emily McCormick for a closer look at the selling that we're seeing today. Emily.

EMILY MCCORMICK: Well, Seana, as you mentioned, a tough day in the markets, and the picture has gotten even uglier in the past hour or so. We're right near session lows here on all three major stock averages. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, as you mentioned, down more than 1,100 points. And if these losses hold, this index is on track for its worst day since June 2020. Now, we do have the NASDAQ composite, that tech heavy average, the laggard today, down 4.7%. Really seeing these losses accelerating into this final hour of trading.

And also the S&P 500 nearly down 4% on an intraday basis as well. Now, as we see, the index is moving lower. We're seeing volatility moving higher. The CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, is now above that 30 level, closing in on 31. It had been just around 27 earlier during market open just, again, several hours ago. So we seeing those-- the VIX moving to the upside as well, though not quite at the highs that we've seen over the past 10 to 14 days.

And then taking a deeper dive into the NASDAQ 100, of course, again, seeing a real bloodbath when it comes to these tech names. A lot of these tech companies that have a retail component to them that's like an Apple or an Amazon are especially getting hit hard today, after what we've heard from Walmart and Target over the past 48 hours. Those earnings and that profit outlook for both retailers really disappointing when it came to those bottom line results.

And then if we take a deeper dive here into the retail sector and some of the major names within that on equal weighted basis, that really does paint the picture here of all the stress that we're seeing across this industry. Target shares down 27% today, on track for their biggest decline since Black Monday in 1987. So certainly some multi-decade lows or some multi-decade lows in terms of the percent decline that we're seeing on that front.

And then finally, I do want to give a quick overview of what we're seeing elsewhere in risk assets, and that's in the cryptocurrency space. Now, unfortunately, also seeing a lot of red across the screen here, so no respite, really, for any risk assets. And we're also seeing Bitcoin prices down 2% intraday, below that $30,000 level. And Bitcoin also on track for its worst one-month performance in a year. So certainly seeing quite a bit of pressure here just across risk assets in general, guys.

DAVE BRIGGS: Whew, that is a lot to take in. You're also watching Chinese stocks. What do you see in there?

EMILY MCCORMICK: Well, Dave, a lot of red across the screen, really a theme that we've been talking about all day today. And that's really coming as we had Tencent, this company reported earnings results earlier today that disappointed compared to Wall Street's expectations.

This company really highlighting the fact that the COVID concerns in China, the fact that there's still that tech crackdown happening, all of this really exerting pressure on Tencent, down 6.7% on an intraday basis and really adding to the selling pressure that we've seen over the course of 2022 to date for this sector. And again, just really pointing to the fact that we're seeing this pulling down other Chinese tech stocks in sympathy. Alibaba down about 5% and jd.com, which reported earlier this week as well, down 5.2%, guys.