Wall St. ends volatile session nearly flat a day after widespread slaughter;Dow falls

• Home
• stock markets

Ahead of a monthly employment report due on Friday, a slew of Wall St. stock indices had managed to close out nearly flatlined, as a sharp decline in trade-sensitive stocks had been offset by a whacking rally in financials stocks with lenders leading the tally of gains over optimism that the US Fed would raise its benchmark borrowing cost much-earlier than anticipated.

A higher interest rate is usually seen as a negative impetus for growth stocks, while financials and lenders are more likely to be benefitted by the most from a higher interest rate. In point of fact, Thursday’s Wall St.

experienced an upscaled volatility a day after minutes from US Fed December 14-15 policy meet had unveiled that Fed policymakers had been pondering an earlier than anticipated rate hike alongside a potential decline in US Central Bank’s holdings such as mortgage-backed assets alongside Treasury Yields, in order to overturn a stabbing inflation-surge, eventually sending shockwaves across global equity market with the so-called growth stocks like of tech sector bearing the heaviest brunt.

Nasdaq faltered more than 3.0 per cent on yesterday, remarking its worst intra-session plunge since February 2021 while leading to a steep downturn in global equity indices as well. Nonetheless, in the day’s Wall Street was supported by a flurry of upbeat economic data, as US initial jobless claims rose marginally last week, while new orders for US-borne manufacturing items surged as much as 1.6 per cent in November.

Though, an ISM (Institute for Supply Management) survey report revealing its index for US national services sector activities fell to 62.0 per cent on December compared to a record 69.7 per cent logged a month earlier, took a teetering toll on investors’ morale.

Apart from that, an upswing in Crude Oil futures’ prices helped S&P 500’s economically sensitive sectors including energy, score modest gains.

Wall St. ends tumultuous session nearly flatlined; Dow falls

Citing statistics, in the day’s Wall St.

closing bell, trade-sensitive Dow faltered 0.47 per cent to 36,236.39 and benchmark S&P 500 shed 0.10 per cent to 4,696.05, while tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.12 per cent to 15,084.64 as an increase in shares’ prices of Meta Platform had proffered a boost to tech stocks.

Meanwhile, addressing to an all-important employment report due to be released on Friday, a senior investment director at US Bank Wealth Management, Bill Northey said, “We have a jobs report tomorrow, which continues to be a focal area for the market in terms of the progression of the labor market”.