US stocks tumble after weak confidence data, oil gains

Investors have been worried that an aggressive interest rate hike cycle by the US Federal Reserve to tame inflation could tip the economy into recession.

All three major indexes ended well down on Wall Street, with every S&P 500 sector losing ground aside from energy. Earlier in the session, news that China relaxed some COVID-19 quarantine rules helped lift stocks as investors hoped for a revival in global growth.

"It doesn't take much in terms of negativity to cause that profit-taking," said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder in New York. "At some point this aggressive selling is going to dissipate, but it doesn't seem like it's going to be anytime soon," he added.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 491.27 points, or 1.56 percent, to 30,946.99, the S&P 500 lost 78.56 points, or 2.01 percent, to 3,821.55 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 343.01 points, or 2.98 percent, to 11,181.54.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.27 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe shed 1.28 percent.

China slashed the quarantine time for inbound travellers by half in a major easing of one of the world's strictest COVID-19 curbs, which have deterred cross-border travel and resulted in international flights running at just 2 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

Brent crude futures climbed $2.89, or 2.5 percent, to settle at $117.58 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude settled up $2.19, or 2 percent, to $111.76.

In foreign exchange, the euro weakened after European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde offered no fresh insight into the central bank's policy outlook.

The dollar index rose 0.51 percent, with the euro down 0.61 percent to $1.05. US Treasury yields were mostly flat following the consumer confidence report.

The yield on 10-year Treasury notes fell 0.2 basis points to 3.19 percent. A closely watched part of the Treasury yield curve measuring the gap between yields on two and 10-year notes, a sign of economic expectations, was at 6.6 basis points. The gap earlier briefly spiked down to -7.24 when New York trade opened.

Spot gold dropped 0.1 percent to $1,820.29 an ounce. Bitcoin last fell 2.1 percent to $20,264.23.