The US stock market closed off Monday evening with a major downturn, resulting in the S&P 500 losing 1.20% compared to the previous day and the Nasdaq Composite falling 1.79%.

The Dow Jones suffered the least, with just a 0.65% drop from the day before. The biggest losses there came from Salesforce (down 7.28%) and Apple (down 2.19%). Salesforce (CRM) is seeing a stock price drop after news broke that the company would be making a major purchase and buying up Informatica, a company with a $10 billion market cap. Apple (AAPL) fell after it lost its top spot as the world’s biggest phone manufacturer to Samsung.

A number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies had a rough Monday and brought down the Nasdaq Composite by a sharper drop than we have seen in weeks. That tech-heavy index saw major losses from Marinus Pharmaceuticals (MRNS), Complete Solaria (CSLR), and Viracta Therapeutics (VIRX), among others.

Over on the S&P 500, some of the most notable losers for Monday were Tesla (TSLA) and CarMax (KMX), after both of these companies had a poor showing in their quarterly earnings reports.

Upcoming FOMC Meeting to Shift Market

Investors are awaiting news from the FOMC meeting to be held on Thursday this week, where FOMC members Barkin, Bostic, Williams, and Collins are all expected to speak. They will be talking about the inflation issue primarily and what the Federal Reserve is doing to combat rising inflation costs.

It is expected that they will make vague remarks about interest rate cuts and give no definite date for when those might take place. That has been the Fed’s position for all of 2024, as they watch and wait for inflation to decrease so that they can more safely bring the interest rates down.

Expect broader comments on the economy as well, and if the statements tend to be mostly negative, the stock market will likely have another down week like it did last week.