NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are tumbling Friday on worries the U.S. economy could be cracking under the weight of high interest rates meant to whip inflation.

The S&P 500 was sinking by 2.2% in afternoon trading, potentially on pace for its worst day since 2022, and on track for its first back-to-back loss of more than 1% since April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 807 points, or 2%, as of 1:10 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 2.6% lower as a sell-off for stocks whipped all the way around the world back to Wall Street.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are tumbling Friday on worries the U.S. economy could be cracking under the weight of high interest rates meant to whip inflation.

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan’s Nikkei 225 index Friday, Aug. 2, 2024, in Tokyo. Shares in Europe and Asia tumbled Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 index slumping 5.8% as investors panicked over signs of weakness in the U.S. economy. (Kyodo News via AP)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan’s Nikkei 225 index Friday, Aug. 2, 2024, in Tokyo. Shares in Europe and Asia tumbled Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 index slumping 5.8% as investors panicked over signs of weakness in the U.S. economy. (Kyodo News via AP)

A currency trader passes by the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders watch monitors near the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

An electronic stock board shows that Nikkei stock average dropped over 1,900 Japanese yen from previous day, in Tokyo Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. (Kyodo News via AP)

A currency trader watches monitors near the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

People pass by an electronic stock board in Tokyo Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. (Kyodo News via AP)

A report showing hiring by U.S. employers slowed last month by much more than economists expected sent fear through markets, with both stocks and bond yields dropping sharply. It followed a batch of weaker-than-expected reports on the economy from a day earlier, including a worsening for U.S. manufacturing activity, which has been one of the areas hurt most by high rates.

It was just a couple days ago that U.S. stock indexes jumped to their best day in months after Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave the clearest indication yet that inflation has slowed enough for cuts to rates to begin in September.

Now, worries are rising the Fed may have kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high for too long. A rate cut would make it easier for U.S. households and companies to borrow money and boost the economy, but it could take months to a year for the full effects to filter through.

“The Fed is seizing defeat from the jaws of victory,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. “Economic momentum has slowed so much that a rate cut in September will be too little and too late. They’ll have to do something bigger than” the traditional cut of a quarter of a percentage point ”to avert a recession.”

Traders are now betting on a better than three-in-four chance that the Fed will cut its main interest rate by half a percentage point in September, according to data from CME Group. That’s even though Powell said Wednesday that such a deep reduction is “not something we’re thinking about right now.”

U.S. stocks had already appeared to be headed for losses before the disappointing jobs report thudded onto Wall Street.

Several big technology companies turned in underwhelming profit reports, which continued a mostly dispiriting run that began last week with results from Tesla and Alphabet.

Amazon fell 9.7% after reporting weaker revenue for the latest quarter than expected. The retail and tech giant also gave a forecast for operating profit for the summer that fell short of analysts’ expectations.

Intel dropped even more, 27.7%, after the chip company’s profit for the latest quarter fell well short of forecasts. It also suspended its dividend payment and said it expects to lose money in the third quarter, when analysts were expecting a profit.

Apple was holding steadier, up 2.9%, after reporting better profit and revenue than expected.

Apple and a handful of other Big Tech stocks known as the “ Magnificent Seven ” have been the main reasons the S&P 500 has set dozens of records this year, in part on a frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. But their momentum turned last month on worries investors had taken their prices too high and expectations for future growth are too difficult to meet.

Friday’s losses for tech stocks dragged the Nasdaq composite down by more than 10% from its record set in the middle of last month.

Helpfully for Wall Street, other areas of the stock market beaten down by high interest rates had been rebounding at the same time tech stocks were regressing, particularly smaller companies. But they tumbled too Friday on worries that a fragile economy could undercut their profits.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks dropped 3.5%, more than the rest of the market.

In the bond market, Treasury yields fell sharply as traders raised their expectations for how deeply the Federal Reserve would have to cut interest rates. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 3.81% from 3.98% late Thursday and from 4.70% in April.

Amid all the fear, some voices on Wall Street were still advising caution.

“While worries of a policy mistake are rising, one negative miss shouldn’t lead to overreaction,” according to Lara Castleton, U.S. head of portfolio construction and strategy at Janus Henderson Investors.

She points out the U.S. economy is still growing, and inflation is still slowing. The S&P 500, meanwhile, isn’t far off its record set two weeks ago. “Equities selling off should be seen as a normal reaction, especially considering the high valuations in many pockets of the market. It’s a good reminder for investors to focus on the earnings of companies going forward.”

In stock markets abroad, Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 5.8%. It’s been struggling since the Bank of Japan raised its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday. The hike pushed the value of the Japanese yen higher against the U.S. dollar, potentially hurting profits for exporters and deflating a boom in tourism.

Chinese stocks fell week as investors registered disappointment with the government’s latest efforts to spur growth through various piecemeal measures, instead of hoped-for infusions of broader stimulus, while stock indexes dropped by more than 1% across much of Europe.

Commodity prices have also had a rough ride this week. Oil prices surged after the killings of leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah that fueled fears that a widening conflict in the Middle East could disrupt the flow of crude.

But prices fell back Thursday and Friday on worries that a weakening economy will burn less fuel. A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude tumbled 3.8% Friday to bring its loss for the week to 4.8%.

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France (AP) — British golfer Tommy Fleetwood is on familiar turf and chasing another gold trophy at Le Golf National, this one an Olympic medal instead of that 17-inch Ryder Cup trophy.

The medal chase in men’s golf began to take shape Friday with Fleetwood sharing the 36-hole lead with defending Olympic champion Xander Schauffele and Hideki Matsuyama, giving another sellout crowd plenty of star power at the top.

Schauffele was slowed by ants in the rough and posted a 5-under 66, tying the 36-hole Olympic record he set at the Tokyo Games. He was joined by a pair of sloppy finishes. Fleetwood took bogey from a fairway bunker for a 64, while Matsuyama went from rough to water for a double bogey on the 18th and a 68.

They were at 11-under 131, two ahead of Jon Rahm (66).

Schauffele appears to be on auto-pilot at times, not missing a step from winning the British Open for his second major of the year.

Fleetwood, however, has the experience on this track. He won the French Open at Le Golf National in 2017 and then starred in Europe’s Ryder Cup victory a year later, going 4-1 in his matches.

“You’re always better off coming to a course where you have good feelings and good things have happened. So I’ll definitely draw on those,” he said. “But again, I have to stand up there tomorrow and hit the golf shots. Nothing that’s happened in the past is going to do it for me.

“It’s better having good feelings that having a course that’s battered you to pieces.”

Schauffele had three straight birdies around the turn and was making it look easy until one bad drive on the 13th and one weird lie. The ball was buried so deep a marshal stuck his finger in the tall grass to show him where it was. Schauffele noticed something else — ants.

He was trying to position his club when he noticed something behind his golf ball.

“It was a pile of ants, an ant pile, whatever you want to call it,” he said.

There is free relief from a dangerous animal — fire ants are cited in the rules — but these weren’t the dangerous variety. One official said Schauffele could scrape it away with his club, only Schauffele wasn’t sure about that. A second official said he could use his tee to scrape away the pile. All that for a shot that he could only hack out some 50 yards, leading to a bogey.

That was the extent of his drama for the day.

“Five under is a good score on this property,” he said. “Overall, sitting in a good spot coming into the weekend.”

Scottie Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 player, is at least in range and plenty happy about that. He took a double bogey on the seventh hole from grass so thick he could only advance the shot about 10 feet, and the next one only about 80 yards. He was 2 over for the day and losing ground quickly.

“Panic is definitely not the right word,” Scheffler said. “But when you look up at the leaderboard, I think at the time I was maybe nine shots back or something like that. Around a golf course like this, where the scores are going to continue to get lower, it could be tough to catch up. I needed to do something to get back in the tournament.”

He shot 31 on the back nine for 69 and was five shots behind. The greens have been so perplexing to Scheffler that after misreading a 6-foot birdie chance on the ninth hole, he had caddie Ted Scott read them the rest of the way and he trusted it.

“The way I was feeling, I wasn’t really going to disagree with what he was saying,” he said.

Thomas Detry of Belgium had the low round at 63 that got him within three shots of the lead, along with 22-year-old Tom Kim of South Korea (68) and C.T. Pan of Taiwan (65), the bronze medalist from the Tokyo Games.

Rahm played alongside Schauffele and at one point found himself five shots back. But the big Spaniard ran off three straight birdies in the middle of the back nine, including a tee shot to 3 feet on the par-3 16th, and saved par on the final hole.

It’s his first time contending on a big stage this year. Rahm tied for seventh in the British Open for his best result in a major, though he was never really in the mix. Now he is, and he got a good look at what he faces in Schauffele riding a wave of momentum.

“What Xander has done this year weighs much more than the medal from three years ago,” Rahm said. He added with a laugh, “And I didn’t tell him because I don’t want to remind him of all the good things he has achieved.”

Rory McIlroy was six shots behind, a big push late halted by a double bogey from deep rough on the 17th hole.

“A few too many mistakes, similar story to yesterday,” he said.

AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games