Wall Street ends 2022 with biggest annual drop since 2008

U.S. stocks closed out 2022 lower on Friday, capping a year of sharp losses driven by aggressive interest rate hikes to curb inflation, recession fears, the Russia-Ukraine war and rising concerns over COVID cases in China, Qazet.az reports.

Wall Street's three main indexes booked their first yearly drop since 2018 as an era of loose monetary policy ended with the Federal Reserve's fastest pace of rate hikes since the 1980s.

The benchmark S&P 500 (.SPX) has shed 19.4% this year, marking a roughly $8 trillion decline in market cap. The tech-heavy Nasdaq (.IXIC) is down 33.1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) has fallen 8.9%.

The annual percentage declines for all three indexes were the biggest since the 2008 financial crisis, largely driven by a rout in growth shares as concerns over Fed's rapid interest rate hikes boost U.S. Treasury yields.