Stocks closed broadly lower on Wall Street Tuesday, after a discouraging snapshot of U.S. consumer confidence stoked investors’ worries about the risk that sharply higher interest rates and pervasive inflation could trigger a recession.
The S&P 500 ended 2 percent lower, reversing a 1.2 percent gain from earlier in the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.6 percent and the Nasdaq composite ended 3 percent lower.
Roughly 85 percent of the stocks in the benchmark S&P 500 closed in the red. Technology, communications and health care stocks accounted for a big share of the decline. Retailers and other companies that rely on direct consumer spending also helped pull the index lower. Energy stocks, the only sector in the index to notch gains this year, rose as crude oil prices headed higher….