Stocks continue plunge

NEW YORK — It was another miserable day on Wall Street as a series of big December plunges continued, putting stocks on track for their worst month in a decade.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 464 points Thursday, bringing its losses to more than 1,700 points since Friday.

The benchmark S&P 500 index has slumped 10.6 percent this month and is almost 16 percent below the

peak it reached in late September.

The steady gains of this spring and summer now fell like a distant memory. As we’ve entered the fall, investors started to worry that global economic growth is cooling off and that the U.S. could slip into a recession in the next few years. The S&P 500 is on track for its first annual loss in a decade.

The technology stocks that have led the market in recent years are now dragging it down.

The market swoon is coming even as the U.S. economy is on track to expand this year at the fastest pace in 13 years. Markets tend to move, however, on what investors anticipate will happen well into the future, so it’s not uncommon for stocks to sink when the economy is humming along.

Right now, markets are concerned about the potential for a slowing economy and two threats that could make the situation worse: the ongoing trade dispute between the U.S. and China, and rising interest rates, which act as a brake on economic growth by making it more expensive for businesses and individuals to borrow money.

The possibility of a partial shutdown of the federal government also loomed over the market Thursday. In general, shutdowns don’t affect the U.S. economy or the market much unless they stretch out for several weeks.