US stock market opens lower with extreme volatility

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - Major indexes in the US stocks market opened with huge losses on Wednesday with extreme volatility.

The Dow Jones was down 410 points, or 1.2%, to 33,650 at 9.37 a.m. EDT (1337GMT) with investment banking majors Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley falling 2% each.

The S&P 500 fell 57 points, or 1.4%, to 4,070 with Tesla plummeting 4.6%. The Nasdaq declined 208 points, or 1.5%, to 13,095 with Twitter, Airbnb and Zoom Video all falling more than 2% apiece.

The VIX volatility index soared 20% to 25.6 as investors turned towards the US dollar.

US dollar index, which shows the strength of the greenback against a basket of six other major currencies, was up 0.2% to 89.89.

Bitcoin has continued to plummet for the third consecutive day, falling to as low as $29,563 just before the US market opening. The world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap was trading just above $34,000 mark at the time of the opening bell -- losing almost half of its value since it hit a record high level of $64,300 last month. Some altcoins lost as much as 45% on Wednesday.