By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – The S&P 500 fell sharply Friday, weighed down by mostly disappointing quarterly earnings from corporates and rising bets on even more aggressive Federal Reserve monetary policy tightening ahead.

They fell by 2.5% and slipped 2.4% (848 points), respectively.

Healthcare was the sector that performed the worst on day. It pressed the wider market with a decline in HCA (Health Care Administration) and Intuitive Surgical.

HCA Holdings (NYSE 🙂 dropped more than 20% following mixed quarterly results. The company also cut its full-year guidance due to the effects of rising costs and the pandemic.

Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:) fell more than 14% as its better-than-expected first-quarter results were overshadowed by “the lack of follow-through on the procedure guide and the commentary around a potentially softer U.S. capital pipeline,” Raymond James said as it cut its price target on the stock to $330 from $334.

Stock sentiment was also affected by the expectation that the Federal Reserve will follow Chairman Jerome Powell’s hawkish comments earlier in the day and make a tighter monetary policy.

Powell said Wednesday that an increase of 50 basis points was possible for the May meeting. Powell also stated that it was not impossible to back-load more than one fifty basis point increment beyond May’s meeting.

“The market was already anticipating a 50bps hike next month. Going forward, however, against the backdrop of this week’s Fed commentary, an even larger 75bp hike is now on the table,” Stifel said in note.

It briefly rose to the highest level since 2018 before losing its gains. While the 2-year Treasury yield, which is more sensitive to the Fed’s rate hikes, continued to advance.  

Tech traded in the red despite rising rates and the loss of growth stocks. 

Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:), Amazon (NASDAQ:), Microsoft  (NASDAQ:), Apple (NASDAQ:) and Meta (NASDAQ:) were down more than 1%.

The biggest drag to the wider market was also communication services Verizon Communications (NYSE: ) experienced its worst drop in two years. This telecoms company lowered its full-year forecast.