Stocks’ sell-off worsens as Wall Street wonders how much pain Trump will accept for the economy

endure through tariffs and other policies in order to get what he wants.

, which was set just last month. At one point, the S&P 500 was down 3.6% and on track for its worst day since 2022. That’s when the highest inflation in generations was shredding budgets and raising worries about a possible recession that ultimately never came.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 890 points, or 2.1%, after paring an earlier loss of more than 1,100, while the Nasdaq composite skidded by 4%.

. The worry is that the whipsaw moves will either hurt the economy directly or create enough uncertainty to drive U.S. companies and consumers into an economy-freezing paralysis.

suggests the U.S. economy may already be shrinking.

: “I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing.” He then added, “It takes a little time. It takes a little time.”

, which could hinder the job market.

. But economists are marking down their forecasts for how the economy will perform this year.

At Goldman Sachs, for example, David Mericle cut his estimate for U.S. economic growth to 1.7% from 2.2% for the end of 2025 over the year before, largely because tariffs look like they’ll be bigger than he was previously forecasting.

He sees a one-in-five chance of a recession over the next year, raising it only slightly because “the White House has the option to pull back policy changes” if the risks to the economy “begin to look more serious.”

“There are always multiple forces at work in the market, but right now, almost all of them are taking a back seat to tariffs,” according to Chris Larkin, managing director, trading and investing, at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley.

Trump met on Monday with tech industry CEOs, but the event was closed to the news media. He remained silent about the sell-off through the day.

frenzy in recent years have slumped sharply.

fell another 5.1% Monday to bring its loss for the year so far to more than 20%. It’s a steep drop-off from its nearly 820% surge over 2023 and 2024.

and other moves have targeted Tesla dealerships, for example.

Stocks of companies that depend on U.S. households feeling good enough about their finances to spend also fell sharply. Cruise-ship operator Carnival dropped 7.6%, and United Airlines lost 6.3%.

It’s not just stocks struggling. Investors are sending prices lower for all kinds of investments whose momentum had earlier seemed nearly impossible to stop at times, such as bitcoin. The cryptocurrency’s value has dropped below $80,000 from more than $106,000 in December.

Instead, investors have bid up U.S. Treasury bonds as they look for things whose prices can hold up better when the economy is under pressure. That has sent prices for Treasurys sharply higher, which in turn has sent down their yields.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury tumbled again to 4.22% from 4.32% late Friday. It’s been dropping since January, when it was approaching 4.80%, as worries about the economy have grown. That’s a major move for the bond market.

All the uncertainty, though, hasn’t shut down dealmaking on Wall Street. Redfin’s stock jumped 67.9% after Rocket said it would buy the digital real estate brokerage in an all-stock deal valuing it at $1.75 billion. Rocket’s stock sank 15.3%.

ServiceNow fell 7.9% after the AI platform company said it was buying AI-assistant maker Moveworks for $2.85 billion in cash and stock.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 155.64 points to 5,614.56. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 890.01 to 41,911.71, and the Nasdaq composite sank 727.90 to 17,468.32.

In stock markets abroad, European indexes largely fell following a mixed session in Asia.

fell in February for the first time in 13 months. It’s the latest signal of weakness for the world’s second-largest economy, as persistent weak demand was compounded by the early timing of the Lunar New Year holiday.

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AP Business Writers Matt Ott, Elaine Kurtenbach and Josh Boak contributed.

Stan Choe, The Associated Press