NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks fell decisively for a second straight session Friday following a major IT outage that roiled many businesses at a time when analysts consider the market “overbought.”
Airlines, banks, TV stations and financial institutions were among those thrown into turmoil due to a faulty update to an antivirus program for Windows systems from American cybersecurity group CrowdStrike.
The outage added more uncertainty at a time when markets were already edgy over speculation that President Joe Biden will withdraw from the 2024 campaign.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 0.9 percent at 40,287.53.
The broad-based S&P 500 dropped 0.7 percent to 5,505.00, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index declined 0.8 percent to 17,726.94.
“The market was extremely overbought so it was just a matter of time before we had a pullback,” said Tom Cahill of Ventura Wealth Management.
