The Nasdaq Composite stock index has undergone its heaviest one-month sell-off since the depths of the global financial crisis, as concerns about rising interest rates and slowing economic growth were exacerbated by softer business updates from tech giants such as Amazon, Apple and Netflix.
The tech-dominated index sank 4.2 per cent on Friday following lacklustre results by Amazon and Apple the previous evening. The move brought the Nasdaq’s April fall to 13.3 per cent, the worst monthly decline since October 2008, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers had rocked financial markets.
The index has shed more than $5tn in total market capitalisation from its all-time high last November. Analysts at Bank of America summed up investor sentiment on Friday as “just awful”.