{"id":60007,"date":"2026-03-20T14:09:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T18:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/dowjonestodaydow-jones-slips-amid-quadruple-witching-volatility-and-inflation-concerns\/60007\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T14:09:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T18:09:25","slug":"dowjonestodaydow-jones-slips-amid-quadruple-witching-volatility-and-inflation-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/dowjonestodaydow-jones-slips-amid-quadruple-witching-volatility-and-inflation-concerns\/60007\/","title":{"rendered":"[DowJonesToday]Dow Jones Slips Amid Quadruple Witching Volatility and Inflation Concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/stockmarketwatch.com\/indices\/dowjones\/today\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Dow Jones Today\">Dow Jones<\/a> Industrial Average (<a href=\"\/stock\/%5EDJI\">^DJI<\/a>)<\/strong> was down <strong>269.28 (-0.5851%)<\/strong> points today, currently trading at <strong>45,752.15<\/strong>. This bearish sentiment was echoed in the activity for <strong>Dow Futures (<a href=\"\/stock\/YM=F\">YM=F<\/a>)<\/strong>, which was down <strong>251.00 (-0.5416%)<\/strong> to <strong>46,090.00<\/strong>. The primary narrative weighing on the market for <strong>Friday, March 20th, 2026<\/strong>, was the <strong>&quot;Quadruple Witching&quot;<\/strong> event, the simultaneous expiration of stock options, stock index options, stock index futures, and single-stock futures. This technical phenomenon triggered massive trading volumes and heightened volatility as institutional investors rebalanced portfolios amidst shifting economic expectations for the remainder of the year.<\/p>\n<p>The key driver behind the downward trajectory was a combination of <strong>hotter-than-expected inflation data<\/strong> in the manufacturing sector and a subsequent rise in the <strong>10-year Treasury yield<\/strong>, which pressured interest-rate-sensitive stocks. <strong>Honeywell (<a href=\"\/stock\/HON\">HON<\/a>)<\/strong> was down <strong>3.19%<\/strong> at <strong>$221.75<\/strong>, leading the losers as industrial outlooks dimmed. <strong>Boeing (<a href=\"\/stock\/BA\">BA<\/a>)<\/strong> was down <strong>2.63%<\/strong> at <strong>$196.10<\/strong> following reports of further production scrutiny, while the semiconductor giant <strong>Nvidia (<a href=\"\/stock\/NVDA\">NVDA<\/a>)<\/strong> was down <strong>2.21%<\/strong> at <strong>$174.64<\/strong>. Other notable decliners included <strong>Caterpillar (<a href=\"\/stock\/CAT\">CAT<\/a>)<\/strong>, which was down <strong>1.87%<\/strong> at <strong>$675.86<\/strong>, and <strong>Microsoft (<a href=\"\/stock\/MSFT\">MSFT<\/a>)<\/strong>, which was down <strong>1.54%<\/strong> at <strong>$382.82<\/strong>, as the tech sector faced broader profit-taking.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, defensive positioning helped several components remain resilient. <strong>Verizon (<a href=\"\/stock\/VZ\">VZ<\/a>)<\/strong> was up <strong>1.95%<\/strong> at <strong>$50.42<\/strong>, serving as the top gainer as investors sought the safety of high-yield telecommunications. The financial sector also showed relative strength; <strong>Goldman Sachs (<a href=\"\/stock\/GS\">GS<\/a>)<\/strong> was up <strong>1.48%<\/strong> at <strong>$821.54<\/strong>, and <strong>Visa (<a href=\"\/stock\/V\">V<\/a>)<\/strong> was up <strong>0.98%<\/strong> at <strong>$302.51<\/strong>. Energy giant <strong>Chevron (<a href=\"\/stock\/CVX\">CVX<\/a>)<\/strong> was up <strong>1.33%<\/strong> at <strong>$204.24<\/strong>, benefiting from a slight uptick in global crude prices. Additionally, healthcare and consumer staples provided a buffer, with <strong>UnitedHealth Group (<a href=\"\/stock\/UNH\">UNH<\/a>)<\/strong> up <strong>0.41%<\/strong> at <strong>$281.89<\/strong> and <strong>Procter &amp; Gamble (<a href=\"\/stock\/PG\">PG<\/a>)<\/strong> up <strong>0.25%<\/strong> at <strong>$145.23<\/strong>, as traders rotated into value-oriented equities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) was down 269.28 (-0.5851%) points today, currently trading at 45,752.15. This bearish sentiment was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"rank_math_schema_Article":[],"rank_math_focus_keyword":[],"rank_math_description":[],"financial_data_references":[],"stock_symbols_mentioned":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[17736],"tags":[297,489,633,1587,3016,3767,4350,17074,17408],"class_list":["post-60007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-snippets-dow-jones","tag-gs","tag-hon","tag-nvda","tag-vz","tag-dji","tag-ba","tag-dow-jones","tag-stock-market-today","tag-2026-market"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}