Stock-market selling nears panic-like levels on the NYSE as Dow tumbles 600 points at low

Selling on the New York Stock Exchange approached panic-like proportions late-morning Monday, as tariff-related anxieties accelerated. The so-called Arms Index, a volume-weighted breadth measure, rose to around 1.960 near its peak Monday. The index tends to rise when the broader market falls because the intensity of the selling in declining stocks is usually greater than the intensity of buying in rising stocks. Market technical analysts view increases of at least 2.000 as panic-like selling conditions. So-called panic selling is viewed by the market as a form of investor capitulation. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 600 points at its lows, or 2.4%, on Monday, the S&P 500 index fell 2.3% to 2,815, while the Nasdaq Composite Index retreated 3.1% at 7,675. The number of declining stocks on the NYSE outnumbered advancers 2,462 to 373, or by about 6.6-to-1 margin. Intensification of Sino-American trade disputes has been the main cause of friction in U.S. stocks over the past several sessions.

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