Finance

Major equity benchmarks plunged into negative territory as investors reacted negatively to the central bank's policy tightening and rhetoric on inflation. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over 1%, while the S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite also moved lower. The sharp downward trend marked the seventh day of losses for major indexes out of the past eight trading sessions.

The fixed-income market experienced intense selling pressure that briefly pushed the 10-year Treasury yield up to 5.04%, reaching its highest point since 2007. Rising government bond yields have been fueled by building anxieties around growing national debt and persistent inflation. Although yields stabilized slightly from peak intraday highs, the overall surge continued to weigh heavily on broader stock market sentiment.

Digital assets saw sharp declines across the board after the U.S. Senate failed to pass a procedural vote for a new digital asset regulatory framework known as the Clarity Act. The regulatory setback caused Bitcoin to drop back toward the $75,000 threshold, erasing recent upward momentum. Other prominent alternative tokens, including Ethereum and Solana, mirrored the downward trend with even steeper single-day percentage losses.