Panic buying signs appear on Wall Street on Wednesday as Dow manufacturers face worst day since October

While the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
-1.35%
It saw its biggest slippage in one day since October on Wednesday, with market insiders suggesting New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq investors buy rather than sell stocks. The Arms Index Arms Index, a volume-weighted width measure, fell to 0.234, while many on Wall Street see declines below 0.500 as suggesting a panic buy. The Arms index is calculated by dividing the ratio of the number of advancing stocks to the declining stocks by the ratio of the volume of increasing stocks to a decreasing volume and the index of arms often falls below 1,000, as buyers rush to advancing stocks. The Nasdaq Arms Index was at 0.287. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite COMP,
-1.61%
was off 1% at 13,484, the S&P 500 SPX index,
-1.81%
was 1.3% at 3,798, losing its grip on a key psychological level at 3,800 and the Dow was trading 1.4% lower at 30,525. The downward moves in stocks come as the investors found little reason to buy stocks as retail investors focused on heavily sold stocks like GameStop GME,
+ 138.37%.
Later today, investors also expect a policy update from the Federal Reserve at 2 p.m. ET, with Jerome Powell scheduled to hold a press conference at 2:30 p.m.