Stocks paced toward a third straight day of declines, with technology shares leading the way lower as concerns over inflation persisted. 

The Nasdaq underperformed, and the index opened lower by more than 1.5%. The S&P 500 and Dow were also off sharply. Cryptocurrencies sold off, with bitcoin (BTC-USD) sinking more than 17% to trade below $38,000, or the lowest level since February, and ethereum (ETH-USD) plunging 21% to below $3,800. The moves lower extended a recent bout of volatility and were exacerbated after the People's Bank of China doubled down on its stance that cryptocurrencies could not be used for payments.

Leadership in equity markets has see-sawed between cyclical and value stocks and technology shares, as investors consider prospects for a strong economic rebound, but also the possibility that the pick-up in activity generates a surge in inflation that ultimately weighs on the recovery. So far this month, those concerns have won out and dragged on the indexes, with the S&P 500 down 1.3% for May-to-date and the Nasdaq down 4.7%. 

"We've been telling our clients that we're probably entering a period where there's going to be increased chop going forward," Matt Orton, Carillon Tower Advisors, told Yahoo Finance. "We've had a pretty extreme rotation from growth into value. We've seen fits and starts of rotating back into the growth."

"Now investors need to digest what could potentially be happening with inflation," he added. "But what we like to remind folks is that as we move sideways, any sort of meaningful downside you see should be used opportunistically, because earnings have been strong, guidance from companies has been incredibly strong going forward. The economy is starting to accelerate as we reopen. So there's a lot of reasons to continue owning equities, and it's all about having a game plan." 

Later, the Federal Reserve will release its April meeting minutes Wednesday afternoon, offering market participants more context around the central bank's thinking around the strength of the economic recovery, inflation and potential timing of any monetary policy adjustments. However, the minutes will cover the meeting from before the release of the much weaker-than-expected April jobs report and government print showing a much greater-than-expected increase in consumer prices, rendering them somewhat outdated. 

Plus, "following the April meeting, almost all participants echoed Chair Powell’s view that it is not yet time to begin talking about tapering, with Dallas Fed President Kaplan being a notable exception, suggesting the debate at the meeting may have been subdued," Nomura economist Lewis Alexander wrote in a note Tuesday. 

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