NEW YORK (awp international) – The Federal Reserve’s final minutes scared investors on Wall Street Wednesday. At times, according to the statements, the top indices in the United States had risen. But by the end of the negotiations, the newly acquired confidence had already given way to worries. Eventually, it became clear that the Fed shows no signs of slowing down in the fight against high inflation.
The Wall Street Dow Jones Industrial Index, which was the only index to have remained positive for most of the trading time, eventually closed down 0.10% at 29,210.85 points. The S&P 500 ended the day 0.33% lower at 3577.03 points, the lowest level since November 2020. After a few back and forth, the Nasdaq 100 tech equity index fell 0.05% to 10785, 62 points.
According to the Fed’s mid-September minutes, many central bankers are of the opinion that the costs of fighting inflation too shyly are likely to exceed those of fighting it too hard. During this session, the benchmark rate was raised by 0.75 percentage points for the third consecutive time. The fact that the minutes also stated that a slower tightening would have been appropriate by some time was hardly noticed at the end of the negotiations. Investors are now still worried that the economy may slide into recession due to heavy Fed intervention.
However, bank stocks rose after the central bank minutes because they can benefit from rising interest rates. Shares of JPMorgan at the top of the Dow rose 1.6%. In the S&P 100, shares of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, US Bancorp and Citigroup gained between 0.3 and 1.0%.
In the Dow, Coca-Cola shares were also among the best with a 1.2 percent increase. They benefited from unexpectedly strong quarterly data from competitor Pepsico, whose shares were up 4.2%. After a positive third quarter, the management of the beverage and snack manufacturer has again raised their targets for the year.
The shares of the vaccine manufacturer Covid 19 Moderna took the lead in the Nasdaq selection index with an increase of 8.3%. At over 17 percent, they had sometimes even risen as sharply as in early August. Spurred by the fact that pharmaceutical company Merck & Co wants to exercise its option to partner with the biotech company on a messenger RNA cancer vaccine. Moderna will receive $ 250 million from Merck in exchange for co-development and future commercialization of the vaccine. This is currently in the mid-stage of clinical trials, according to a statement from the two companies.
The euro went up and down in US trade, trading at $ 0.9697 at the close of Wall Street. The European Central Bank had previously set the benchmark rate in Frankfurt at 0.9706 (Tuesday: 0.9723) dollars. The dollar therefore cost 1.0303 (1.0285) euro.
On the US bond market, the 10-year Treasury futures contract (T-Note Future) rose 0.31% to 111.48 points after losses in the first few trades. In return, the yield on 10-year government bonds fell to 3.898 percent./kk/he
— By Claudia Müller, dpa-AFX —
