(New York) The New York Stock Exchange, down throughout the session, finally ended in disarray on Wednesday reacting to a Fed determined to wait even longer before a rate cut while investors watched the results of the mega-capitalization Nvidia.
Updated yesterday at 4:34 p.m.
The Dow Jones index advanced 0.13% to 38,612.24 points, as did the S&P 500 to 4,981.80 points, while the technologically-dominated NASDAQ lost 0.32% to 15,580.87 points.
According to minutes of the Jan. 31 monetary meeting, U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) officials were divided on when to start cutting rates, but most favored a cautious approach, when some consider it risky to start monetary easing late.
The Fed had left its rates unchanged at their highest level in more than twenty years.
For Chris Low, economist at FHN Financial, the “minutes” are overall “quite hawkish” or in favor of maintaining high rates for a while.
“The minutes continue to indicate that the Fed is very cautious and does not want to lower rates too soon,” also estimated Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital.
“From this point of view, it is quite ‘hawkish’,” he commented, using the vocabulary of monetary specialists who thus describe a strict monetary policy.
Added to this was an issue of 20-year Treasury bonds for $16 billion which received only a weak reception. “This also pushed up bond yields, which was very negative for the market,” Mr. Cardillo commented for AFP.
Ten-year bond rates thus jumped to 4.32% compared to 4.27% the day before.
Finally, the big event of the session was the feverish wait for the quarterly results of the AI chip manufacturer, Nvidia, the darling of the market.
Nvidia shares have gained more than 40% since the start of the year and well over 200% over the past year to become, in value terms, the most traded stock daily ahead of Tesla.
But on Wednesday, awaiting its results after the market close, Nvidia, one of the “magnificent 7” – a group of tech mega-capitalizations including Apple and Alphabet in particular – concluded with a fall of 2.85% to $674.72.
Elsewhere, network cybersecurity specialist Palo Alto Networks fell 28.44% to $261.97 as the company lowered its full-year revenue forecast .
The mid-sized company SolarEdge Technologies, specializing in photovoltaic equipment, saw its stock plummet by 12.18%. It suffered a 65% drop in sales in the last quarter.
In the wake of Palo Alto Networks, several cybersecurity companies dropped out, such as Zscaler (-14.10%), SentinelOne (-12.16%) or CrowdStrike (-9.68%).
Cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase fell 6.28% as bitcoin fell (-1.85% around 9:45 a.m. Eastern time).
The shares of Rivian and Lucid, manufacturers of electric vehicles, were under pressure in electronic trading after the close, losing -3.15% and -2.70% respectively after disappointing results.
The artisanal online sales site Etsy lost 3.85% after the close following results that were worse than expected and despite quarterly sales that were better than expected.
The pharmacy chain Walgreens Boots was sanctioned (-2.51% to $21.75) for having lost its place in the Dow Jones, the index of 30 flagship stocks of the New York Stock Exchange. Walgreens will be replaced by Amazon (+0.90%) on Friday.
Toronto closes down 45 points
The Toronto Stock Exchange closed lower on Wednesday as gains in the energy sector were not enough to offset losses in the technology and financial sectors, while U.S. markets were mixed.
The Toronto trading floor’s S&P/TSX composite index ended Wednesday down 45.15 points, at 21,172.38 points.
On the currency market, the Canadian dollar traded at 74.01 US cents, compared to its average price of 73.98 US cents on Tuesday.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, the price of crude oil gained 87 US cents to US$77.91 per barrel. That of natural gas increased by 22 US cents to US$1.86 per million BTU.
The price of gold fell by US$5.50 to US$2,034.30 per ounce and that of copper gained 1 US cent to US$3.88 per pound.
The Canadian Press
2024-02-21 14:45:53
#York #Stock #Exchange #concludes #disorganized #order
