Stocks Slide in One of Wall Street’s Worst Weeks This Year – The New York Times

Stocks fell on Friday, ending one of the worst weeks of the year for Wall Street but prompting warnings that an intractable slump for the global economy is only just beginning.

In the wake of ugly inflation numbers and reeling from the whiplash of another stock market reversal, a parade of prominent investors and corporate executives made it clear that they believed the worst was yet to come for the economy and financial markets.

After hitting a low in June, the S&P 500 had rallied more than 17 percent into mid-August, before losing steam again. This week’s sell-off leaves the index just 5.6 percent above the June low. Friday’s 0.7 percent fall took the index’s weekly loss close to a 5 percent threshold it has breached only three times this year.

Now, some of the most powerful trading houses in the world, deploying trillions of dollars on behalf of pension funds, governments and other investors, are warning that there is more pain ahead.

“If you asked me a year ago, ‘What is the worst scenario for financial markets?’ I think things are now worse than anything we could have imagined,” said Nicolai Tangen, the head of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest of its kind. The fund manages money generated by Norway’s extensive oil and gas sales and has $1.4 trillion invested around the world.