KEY POINTS:
U.S. stock indexes slide; Fedex biggest S&P decliner
Energy, and industrials fall most among S&P sectors
Gold, crude gain; Ether drops
U.S. 10-Year Treasury yield ~3.45%
NOTHING TO FEAR ... BUT THE FED ITSELF (1620 EDT/2020 GMT)
Things could be worse. Stocks settled below the S&P 500's important 3,900 pivot level, but partly recovered from early two-month lows. A purgative wipeout has been put off again, perhaps until Wednesday, when we see whether the Fed chooses the aggressive 75 basis point hike -- the odds-on favorite -- the extreme 100 bp option, or the merely hawkish 50 bp.
The Nasdaq and S&P 500 suffered their biggest Friday-to-Friday drops since June.
Recession anxiety seemed to boil over in the wake of FedEx Corp's FDX withdrawal of its earnings forecast late Thursday, citing dampening global demand. That helped knock Treasury yields down a bit, so at least the market reverted to a traditional risk-off pattern.
The CBOE Market Volatility Index VIX rose to a two-month high, but stayed under 30, still not showing the usual signs of capitulation to clear the decks for buying.
Goldman Sachs noted that about $3.2 trillion of options were set to expire, including $509 billion of single stock options.
The S&P 500 ended the week down 4.8%, more than the index's 1.8% average fall in options expiration weeks, according to a Reuters analysis, and compared with an average weekly gain of 0.09% in non-expiration weeks.
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