The blue-chip index was down 556 points, or 1.3%, with an hour and a half left to go in the trading day. The S&P 500 was down 0.6%. The Nasdaq Composite was down 0.6%.
Though the major indexes saw declines snowballing throughout the morning, the Dow found some support around 44,000. Market breadth was also improving, though still negative. More than 200 S&P 500 stocks were rising, up from earlier in the morning. The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF was down 0.5%.