
Stocks stumbled out of the gate after Labor Day, with a jittery tone gripping markets as the typically weak month of September began in earnest after the holiday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
-1.18%
shed 628 points, or 1.2%, on Tuesday, booking its largest point and percentage decline since Aug. 20, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The blue-chip index has now fallen five of the past seven trading days and is off 2.9% from its record closing high on Aug. 5.
The S&P 500
SPX
-0.58%
dropped 0.6% Tuesday, while the Nasdaq Composite
COMP
-0.32%
lost 0.3%. Meanwhile, the Cboe Volatility Index
VIX
+8.19%
, known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” was awakening from its summer lull — pointing to the potential for more volatility in the S&P 500 over the next month.


