Wall St rises, snaps two-day long sell-off streak

• Financial

On Friday, all three key indices of Wall St. had closed out the session higher despite hawkish remarks from Fed’s Collins, who was quoted saying earlier in the day that a 75-bps rate hike is on the table, eventually adding to investors’ angsts.

However, investors’ bet on defensive shares helped Wall Street end higher. Nonetheless, the gains in defensive shares were eclipsed largely by declines in energy stocks. In the matter of the fact, in the day’s Wall St.

had witnessed a number of side-way swing, as investors seemed to have gauged Fed’s Collins remarks. Besides, a day earlier Fed’s Bullard said that the US Fed must continue to rise its benchmark borrowing costs. The hawkish remarks had led to a decline in growth stocks, while as uncertainties rise over China’s oil demand following an ease of its mass-scale pandemic restriction, energy stocks led to further decline.

On the other side of the coin, a decline in growth stocks had increased demands of defensive stocks, which eventually helped Wall Street close higher on Friday as beforementioned.

Wall St. ends higher on defensives’ gain

Citing statistics, in the day’s Wall St. wind-down, trade-sensitive Dow increased 0.59 per cent to 33,745.69 and S&P 500 rose 0.48 per cent to 3,965.34, while tech-heavy Nasdaq inched 0.01 per cent higher to 11,146.06.

Over the week, S&P 500 retreated 0.7 per cent, falling marginally after a month-long rally largely catalysed by a softer-than-anticipated inflation data that had spurred up hopes that the US Fed might slow down the pace of its aggressive rate-hike cycle.

Apart from that, Nasdaq fell 1.6 per cent over the week, while Dow remained unchanged.