Wall Street Wraps Up Worst Stock Market Year Since 2008

2022 was a tough year for Wall Street, as the stock market saw its largest overall drop in over a decade.

Major Players: All three major stock indexes saw their worst market years since the financial crisis of 2008. Over the course of 2022, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 8.8% and the S&P 500 fell 19.4%. The Nasdaq, home to many technology stocks, suffered the worst, falling 33.1%. The economic implications of this decline were seen in the large layoffs across the tech sector, such as at Amazon, Meta, and Twitter.

Causes: Across the media spectrum, the causes cited for the stock market’s difficult year are mostly consistent. The most common factors blamed are lingering COVID disruptions, supply chain breakdowns, inflation, interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. CNN also cited severe weather and climate change as a factor contributing to the market slip, which CNBC, Fox Business, and Axios (Center Bias) did not include in their reports. CNBC cited a market investor claiming that the interest rates from the Federal Reserve were the most damaging actions seen this year for the market, more so than international issues such as China’s COVID struggles or the Ukraine War.

Looking Ahead: A Fox Business article looked to 2023 with “growing concern about the likelihood of a recession.” Axios cited market over-performance in the previous few years to determine that “things don't seem all that bad.”