*By Kristen Lee*
U.S. stocks accelerated losses at the end of the day Wednesday, with the Dow dropping 600 points and the Nasdaq on pace for its biggest monthly drop in a decade.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the day down 608 points, the S&P lost more than 3 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost nearly 4.5 percent.
The sell-off was driven in part by a Commerce Department report that home sales plunged 5.5 percent in September, which rattled investors who expected only a slight decline.
Tech stocks especially weighed on markets. Netflix ($NFLX) and chipmaker Nvidia ($NVDA) were both down nearly 10 percent, Facebook ($FB), down nearly 6 percent, and Google parent Alphabet ($GOOGL), down more than 5 percent.
Kraft Heinz is splitting into two companies a decade after they joined in a massive merger that created one of the biggest food companies on the planet. One of the companies will include brands such as Heinz, Philadelphia cream cheese and Kraft Mac & Cheese. The other will include brands like Oscar Mayer, Kraft Singles and Lunchables. When the company formed in 2015 it wanted to capitalize on its massive scale, but shifting tastes complicated those plans, with households seeking to introduce healthier options at the table. Kraft Heinz's net revenue has fallen every year since 2020.
About 780,000 pressure washers sold at retailers like Home Depot are being recalled across the U.S. and Canada, due to a projectile hazard that has resulted in fractures and other injuries among some consumers.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
Ford is recalling more than 355,000 of its pickup trucks across the U.S. because of an instrument panel display failure that’s resulted in critical information, like warning lights and vehicle speed, not showing up on the dashboard.
