Decline on Wall Street – Meta falls after share sale by Zuckerberg

The key indices on Wall Street start with a broad decline, after ending a very strong November month last week.

This is what it looked like a few hours into the trade:

• The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.9 percent.
• The Dow Jones fell 0.2 percent.
• The S&P 500 fell 0.6 percent.

Falling government interest rates in the US are part of the background for a strong period in the stock market recently. The two-year interest rate has come down from a peak of over five per cent in mid-October and is at the time of writing at around 4.62 per cent. The ten-year interest rate has also fallen in the same period, and is now around 4.26 per cent.

The market is pricing in at least one rate cut from the Federal Reserve even before the start of May, a narrative that has been fueled by the belief that a soft landing will be achieved for the American economy.

There is a broad decline for the dominant tech companies on the New York Stock Exchange, with Nvidia and Arm leading the way with falls of 2.4 and 3.6 per cent. Otherwise, Spotify rises over eight percent after announcing a layoff before the start of trading.

Sold shares for the first time in two years

Meta Platforms falls around three percent following the news that founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has sold shares for almost $185 million in November.

This corresponds to close to two billion Norwegian kroner. The Meta share was down just under two percent on Monday.

It is the first time in two years that Zuckerberg is selling shares in the company he leads, after the Facebook owner has experienced a price bonanza on the stock exchange after a difficult 2022. According to Bloomberg it concerns a total of around 682,000 shares that have been sold by foundations and the like associated with Zuckerberg. The sales are made through so-called “trading plans”, which Zuckerberg has regularly used since the stock market listing in 2021.

The CEO controls around 13 percent of the shares in the company.

The Meta share has risen over 150 percent so far this year, and is only beaten by Nvidia among the other tech giants in terms of price rise. Meta is now approaching the $378 peak reached two years ago.

The most important number of the month

Later in the week (Friday) comes “nonfarm payrolls”, labor market figures from the US which are referred to as the most important of the month.

Macroeconomists expect that 180,000 jobs were created in the US in November, compared to 150,000 in October. DNB Markets also expects employment growth to end at just under 200,000 new jobs, while unemployment will tick up by a tenth. If it does so, unemployment will have risen by four tenths from the bottom.

Fed economist Claudia Sahm has previously launched a recession sign that reads as follows: If unemployment increases by five tenths from the bottom within 12 months, then the economy will be in – or on the way to – a recession.

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