Stocks declined sharply Wednesday afternoon, with the Nasdaq recording its biggest monthly drop in almost a decade, as bad housing news and global trade concerns added to another tumultuous day on Wall Street. 


*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. 