The first thing to know about the stock market's eye-watering slide Monday is that it wasn't caused by anything fundamental.

There was no particular piece of news that drove the major averages to capsize, in a move that sent the Dow industrials off more than 1,500 points — a new intraday record — briefly in the final hour of trading.

Instead, the market took on a mind of its own, where sentiment and likely some computer-programmed trading sent Wall Street into a bizarre tizzy. Fear brewed over a number of issues, with the biggest being trepidation about rising interest rates even though government bond yields actually were lower on the day.

"Panic is already starting to set in, which is kind of incredible when you actually think about it," said Michael Yoshikami, CEO of Destination Wealth Management. "The S&P is trading where it was in sometime in December. So it's not like we're retracing an entire 12 months of returns here. I think investors are just understandably nervous. It probably is programmed trading kicking in at this point."

Others blamed the Fed for the market breakdown, or least the mentality that led to the selling climate.

The central bank, following its meeting last week, noted that inflation looked to be on the uptick. That put the market on notice, a point that was echoed when the government Friday said average hourly earnings rose 2.9 percent in January, the fastest move of the recovery.