For the first time since the development, it seems that investors across the stock market are worried if the increase in interest rates will have a negative impact on the market as a whole and the shares.

Concerns about higher interest rates seem to be the only thing that the investors are thinking about today, with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke presenting his semiannual economic report to Congress.

The testimony has come a mere week after the Fed hiked the discount rate that is charged by it to the banks for borrowing, igniting speculations that the agency might now finally start increasing the more critical Fed funds rate a well.

With the stocks struggling to stay in the positive territory for the past few months, investors did not need a new thing to worry about. On Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrials declined by 101 points to a new low of 10,282, mainly because of the disappointing consumer confidence figures.