In the U.S., private investors are dumping U.S. stocks at the fastest pace since the pandemic broke out in 2020, CNBCwrites, citing data from JPMorgan Bank. Why do investors sell stocks? The sell-off comes amid the Federal Reserve’s plans for further aggressive rate hikes to fight decades of record inflation.

Should investors sell stocks now?

According to JPMorgan, retail investors have been selling U.S. stocks en masse for the last two weeks. Just last week, they got rid of securities totaling $2.4 billion. For stocks, the past two weeks have been the worst since March 2020, the bank said.

JPMorgan’s data showed the most active selling last week was in large-cap U.S. technology stocks, as rising interest rates could particularly hurt their financial performance. The strongest sales by retail investors were recorded in the shares of Apple — they reached $470 million. During the week, the company’s securities fell by 8%. In shares of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, sales over the week amounted to $128 million; in securities of Microsoft — $70 million.

Retail investors also shrugged off $72 million in shares of sporting goods maker Nike after the company reported a 44% increase in inventory over the last quarter and said it would offer more discounts ahead of the U.S. holiday season.

Chip maker AMD and NVIDIA also saw strong sell-offs by private investors. Sales in AMD stock reached $105 million over the past week, while sales in NVIDIA stock reached $55 million.

Earlier we reported that gold prices are now sluggish in anticipation of US labor market data.