US stocks fall sharply on report of US Pres. Biden's plan to hike capital gains tax

Jennifer Epstein, White House reporter at Bloomberg, tweeted out on Thursday that US President Joe Biden was planning to propose a significant increase in the capital gains tax.

"President Biden will propose almost doubling the capital gains tax rate for wealthy individuals to 39.6%, which, coupled with an existing surtax on investment income, means that federal tax rates for investors could be as high as 43.4%," Epstein said.

Market reaction

Wall Street's main indexes fell sharply following this headline. As of writing, the S&P 500 was down 0.4% at 4,156 and the Nasdaq Composite was losing 0.65% at 13,847.