Stocks are tumbling

wood smoke lumber

(Pixabay)

Stocks are getting smoked again.

Near 2:45 p.m. ET, the Dow was down 180 points, the S&P 500 was down 20 points, and the Nasdaq was down 48 points. The Dow closed 147 points lower on Tuesday.

For a brief moment, markets looked spoofed by comments from Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen that stock valuations are quite high.

Yellen earlier spoke at the IMF about financial stability.

The first snapshot of the jobs market in April came in below expectations. ADP's report showed private payrolls grew by 169,000 last month, compared to the forecast for 200,000. March's report was revised lower to 175,000 from 189,000.

Crude oil is rallying. West Texas Intermediate crude oil is over 2% higher at around $61.88 per barrel; it crossed $60 on Tuesday for the first time since December.

We got more M&A news from the biotech sector: Alexion Pharma announced Wednesday that it was buying Synageva BioPharma for $8.4 billion.

Synageva is up by more than 113%.

And Herbalife is up by more than 15% after reporting upbeat earnings Tuesday, and raising its outlook for the full year.

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