How major US stock indexes fared Thursday

Stocks ended another volatile day lower on Wall Street Thursday, bringing the market closer to its first bear market since the beginning of the pandemic.

The S&P 500, the benchmark for many index funds, fell and is now down 18.7% from the record high it set early this year, nearly at the 20% threshold that defines a bear market.

Investors are worrying that the soaring inflation that’s hurting people shopping for groceries and filling their cars up is also walloping profits at U.S. companies. Target fell again, a day after losing a quarter of its value on a surprisingly large drop in earnings.

On Thursday:

The S&P 500 fell 22.89 points, or 0.6%, to 3,900.79.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 236.94 points, or 0.8%, to 31,253.13.

The Nasdaq fell 29.66 points, or 0.3%, to 11,388.50.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 1.38 points, or 0.1%, to 1,776.22.

For the week:

The S&P 500 is down 123.10 points, or 3.1%.

The Dow is down 943.53 points, or 2.9%.

The Nasdaq is down 416.51 points, or 3.5%.

The Russell 2000 is down 16.44 points, or 0.9%.

For the year:

The S&P 500 is down 865.39 points, or 18.2%.

The Dow is down 5,085.17 points, or 14%.

The Nasdaq is down 4,256.48 points, or 27.2%.

The Russell 2000 is down 469.09 points, or 20.9%.