S&P 500 falls 4% in September for worst month since March 2020

Sept. 30 (UPI) -- U.S. stocks fell on Thursday as Wall Street was turned in its worst-performing month of the year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 546.8 points, or 1.59%, while the S&P 500 dropped 1.19%, and the Nasdaq Composite declined 0.44% on the last day of trading in September.

The S&P 500 is down more than 4% for the month of September, marking its worst month since March 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"September lived up to its reputation and dented stock portfolio returns, but not too badly," Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research said. "There has been a lot of concern that higher wages, higher energy prices and higher transportation costs will weigh on earnings for the remainder of this year and into 2022. It's certainly something we'll be tracking. But so far, analysts remain relatively sanguine."

The S&P 500 remains on track to end the quarter with an increase of 1.4%, however, the increase marks its smallest three-month gain since March 2015.

Energy and financial stocks pulled back from previous gains on Thursday, with Goldman Sachs stock falling 1.78% and JPMorgan dropping 1.36%.

Netflix stock gained 1.88% and chipmaker Nvidia grew 0.98% as tech stocks slightly rebounded from losses brought on by surging treasury yields but Apple stock fell 0.93% and Amazon dropped 0.48% as both stocks gave back earlier gains.