Stocks ended another volatile day lower on Wall Street Thursday, bringing the market closer to its first bear market since the beginning of the pandemic.

       The S&P 500, the benchmark for many index funds, fell and is now down 18.7% from the record high it set early this year, nearly at the 20% threshold that defines a bear market.

       Investors are worrying that the soaring inflation that’s hurting people shopping for groceries and filling their cars up is also walloping profits at U.S. companies. Target fell again, a day after losing a quarter of its value on a surprisingly large drop in earnings.

       On Thursday:

       The S&P 500 fell 22.89 points, or 0.6%, to 3,900.79.

       The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 236.94 points, or 0.8%, to 31,253.13.

       The Nasdaq fell 29.66 points, or 0.3%, to 11,388.50.

       The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 1.38 points, or 0.1%, to 1,776.22.

       For the week:

       The S&P 500 is down 123.10 points, or 3.1%.

       The Dow is down 943.53 points, or 2.9%.

       The Nasdaq is down 416.51 points, or 3.5%.

       The Russell 2000 is down 16.44 points, or 0.9%.

       For the year:

       The S&P 500 is down 865.39 points, or 18.2%.

       The Dow is down 5,085.17 points, or 14%.

       The Nasdaq is down 4,256.48 points, or 27.2%.

       The Russell 2000 is down 469.09 points, or 20.9%.