US markets tumbled more than 2.5% yesterday, ensuring the three main benchmarks ended in negative territory for the week, as surprise earnings news and increased certainty around aggressive near-term interest rate rises took its toll on investors.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 981 points, or 2.8%, to 33,811; The S&P 500 lost 122 points, or 2.8%, to 4,272 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 335 points, or 2.6%, to 12,839. For the Dow, its 2.82% drop on Friday was its biggest one-day fall since October 2020. For the week, the Dow dipped 1.9%, the S&P dropped 2.8%, and the Nasdaq declined 3.8%. It was the third straight week of losses for both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, while the Dow Jones posted its fourth weekly decline in a row.

Concerns about risks from interest rate hikes continued to reverberate after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's hawkish pivot on Thursday, where he backed moving more quickly to combat inflation and said a 50-basis-point increase would be "on the table" when the Fed meets in May.

The prospect of a more hawkish Fed has led to a rocky start to the year for equities, with Friday's sell-off taking declines on both the S&P and Dow since the start of the year beyond 10%.

Meanwhile, the latest earnings forecasts to jolt investors came from healthcare, with HCA Healthcare and Intuitive Surgical the worst performers on the S&P 500.

HCA slumped 21.8% after reporting a downbeat profit view, while other hospital operators felt the contagion. Surgical robot maker Intuitive Surgical dropped 14.3% after warning of weaker demand from hospitals due to tighter finances.