Amazon Drops 4% After Huge Antitrust Lawsuit Filed

Wall Street's ugly September got even worse Tuesday, as a sharp drop for stocks brought them back to where they were in June.

• The S&P 500 tumbled 63.91 points, or 1.5%, to 4,273.53 for its fifth loss in the last six days.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 388 points, or 1.1%, to 33,618.88.
• The Nasdaq composite fell 207.71 points, or 1.6%, to 13,063.61.

September has brought a loss of 5.2% so far for the S&P 500, putting it on track to be the worst month of the year by far, as the realization sets in that the Federal Reserve will indeed keep interest rates high for a long time. That growing understanding has sent yields in the bond market to their highest levels in more than a decade, which in turn has undercut prices for stocks and other investments.

On Wall Street, the vast majority of stocks fell Tuesday, including 90% of those within the S&P 500. Big Tech stocks tend to be among the hardest hit by high rates, and they were the heaviest weights on the index, the AP reports. Apple fell 2.3% and Microsoft lost 1.7%. Amazon tumbled 4% after the Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general filed an antitrust lawsuit against it. They accuse the e-commerce behemoth of using its dominant position to inflate prices on other platforms, overcharge sellers and stifle competition.

Cintas dropped 5.3% for the largest loss in the S&P 500, even though the provider of employee uniforms, mops, fire extinguishers, and other services reported stronger profit for its latest quarter than analysts expected. It also raised its forecast for profit for the full fiscal year, but still within a range that many analysts earlier expected.

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Treasury yields rose again Thursday following a mixed batch of reports on the economy. The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.55% from 4.54% late Monday and is near its highest level since 2007. One economic report on Tuesday showed confidence among consumers was weaker than economists expected. That's concerning because strong spending by US households has been a bulwark keeping the economy out of a long-predicted recession. A separate report said sales of new homes across the country slowed by more last month than economists expected, while a third report suggested manufacturing in Maryland, the Virginias, and the Carolinas may be steadying itself following a more than yearlong slump.

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