Dow Plummets, Snaps Back in Wild Open on Wall Street

Buckle up, Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Index plunged 500 points at its open Tuesday and then made a U-turn, spiking 350 into positive territory before easing back toward a breakeven—all in its first hour of the trading session. It’s a third day of market turmoil, one session after the U.S. bellwether posted its biggest one-day point drop ever, plummeting 1175, on fears of inflation and higher interest rates, as well as the reaction of computer-driven trading algorithms. Overnight, stock markets throughout Asia and Europe dropped dramatically on the new worries. Meanwhile, bitcoin prices continued to plummet, falling below $6,000, as regulators from the U.S. and elsewhere began to clamor for more oversight of volatile cryptocurrencies. Agustín Carstens, the new head of the Bank for International Settlements—a governing body for central banks—called for greater control over bitcoin, as it had turned into “a bubble, a Ponzi scheme, and an environmental disaster.”