The Dow Jones Industrial Average heads for its first correction in 2 years. Here’s the level to watch.
An ugly stretch for U.S. equities intensified to start the week as the crisis in Ukraine worsened and investors weighed the prospect of further sanctions to cripple the Russian economy as the Kremlin wages war in Eastern Europe.
Against that backdrop, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
A close below 33,119.685 was the level needed to mark a 10% decline from its Jan. 4 record high, meeting the commonly used definition of a correction. The Dow finished Monday trade at 32,817.38.
The Dow last finished in correction on Feb. 27, 2020, and extended the decline into a bear market, defined as a drop of at least 20% from a recent peak, during the height of the pandemic-fueling selloff two years ago.
The Dow would join the S&P 500 SPX,
A surge in crude oil CL.1,
Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, now in its 12th day, has roiled commodity markets, and soured relations between the Kremlin and the West, with selected Russian banks removed from the SWIFT payment network, a key mechanism for communicating global payments and much of Russia’s stock market closed as the ruble USDRUB,
The decline in U.S. markets also pushed the Nasdaq Composite COMP,
