NEW YORK (awp international) – Fears of a nuclear catastrophe in the wake of the war in Ukraine dragged US stock markets down at the end of a turbulent trading week. On Friday, fighting took place at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant near the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia, and fire broke out on the site. Oil and commodity prices remained high, fueling fears of recession and inflation. The focus was also on the US employment market report and its influence on US monetary policy.
The Dow Jones Industrial closed down 0.53 percent at 33,614.80 points. This resulted in a weekly loss of around 1.3 percent for the leading US index. The market-wide S&P 500 fell 0.79 percent on Friday to 4328.87 points. The technology-heavy selection index Nasdaq 100 fell 1.41 percent to 13,837.83 points.
“The risks from the Ukraine war, the sanctions and counter-sanctions, high energy prices coupled with an uncertain oil and gas supply situation for Europe ensure that the environment on the financial markets continues to be fraught with risk and volatility,” said Erste Group experts.
Meanwhile, the US economy created significantly more jobs than expected in February. In addition, the increase in employment in the two previous months was revised upwards. The unemployment rate fell surprisingly significantly. The development of the labor market and high inflation made it necessary to adjust monetary policy, commented Ulrich Wortberg from Helaba.
Business figures caused movement for the individual stocks. Gunmaker Smith & Wesson’s shares fell 12.5 percent after a disappointing earnings report. Costco’s shares fell 1.4 percent after the retail chain released strong quarterly figures but warned of rising costs.
Clothing retailer Gap’s shares soared more than 10 percent in early trading after the annual figures were announced. Shortly thereafter, however, it rapidly went downhill into the red. Ultimately, they stagnated at the previous day’s level.
A strong quarterly outlook pushed shares in semiconductor manufacturer Broadcom up 3 percent. At the software company Splunk, a report on the entry of the financial investor Hellman & Friedman caused a price gain of almost 6 percent.
The euro rate was last listed at 1.0934 US dollars. In European business, the exchange rate of the common currency had fallen below the USD 1.09 mark for the first time since May 2020. The European Central Bank had set the reference rate at 1.0929 (Thursday: 1.1076) dollars. The dollar had cost 0.9150 (0.9029) euros.
US government bonds continued their recent steep upward movement. The futures contract for ten-year Treasuries (T-Note Future) rose by 0.70 percent to 128.45 points. The yield on 10-year government bonds fell to 1.74 percent./edh/he
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