US equity markets accelerated falls into the close following lower than expected retail sales data - Dow fell -613.89 points or -1.81% to 33,296.96, The broader S&P500 -62.11 points -1.56% to 3,928.86, The Nasdaq -138.10 points or -1.24% to 10,957.01. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 -27.82 points or -1.48% to 1,856.47. Microsoft confirmed it will layoff 10,000 or approximately 5% of staff taking recent tech layoffs to over 60k.