Industrial-heavy Dow Jones opens for the fourth time in five days. Tensions are linked to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, as well as the forthcoming minutes from the US Federal Reserve.
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This is what it looks like at the opening on Wall Street:
- Dow Jones down 0.17 percent
- Nasdaq down 1.12 percent
- S&P 500 down 0.43 percent
Thus, the industrial index Dow Jones opens down for the fourth time in five days.
The international market has recently been driven by concerns related to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Russia announced that it was ending military exercises in the Crimean peninsula. But on Wednesday, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg stated that Russia shows no signs of stepping down.
The price of oil has been particularly sensitive to news related to the conflict, and on Wednesday the price of a barrel of North Sea oil (Brent spot) is 94.9 dollars – up 1.54 percent for the day.
Otherwise, soaring inflation and the US Federal Reserve’s plans to raise interest rates also affect the market.
During the evening, the central bank will present its minutes from the previous monetary policy meeting. But after this meeting, which took place in January, figures have shown that US producer prices rose much more than expected in January.
The annual growth ended at 9.7 per cent, six tenths higher than the consensus estimate, DNB Markets notes in its morning report.
This may make the minutes from the interest rate meeting outdated, the brokerage believes.
– The press release from the January meeting was confusingly similar to the one that came after the December meeting, but the subsequent press conference stole the show, writes chief economist Kjersti Haugland in the report.
– This led to the markets pricing in interest rate rises. Following the meeting, more information has come in, including an unexpectedly high inflation figure for January, which has further increased expectations of austerity.
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