NEW YORK (awp international) – The fear of a military conflict in Ukraine and its consequences pushed the US stock exchanges to multi-month lows on Wednesday. An early recovery was quickly ended, in late trading the Dow Jones Industrial fell to just under 33,085 points to its lowest level since April 2021. The leading index then crossed the finish line 1.38 percent lower at 33,131.76 points. The round mark of 33,000 points is gradually being targeted.
Cyber attacks against Ukraine and a report by the US magazine “Newsweek” according to which the US is warning of a military attack by Russia on Ukraine in the next 48 hours drove investors to flee. Added to this is the concern about rapidly rising commodity prices, which could have what it takes to further intensify the inflationary headwinds that have been high for some time.
This background also drove investors to flee the broad stock market. The broad S&P 500 lost 1.84 percent to 4225.50 points. It also fell to its lowest level since June 2021, as did the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100, which ended up losing 2.60 percent to 13,509.43 points.
At the beginning there was still hope that the consequences of the sanctions would remain manageable and that diplomatic solutions were still conceivable. Stockbrokers do not see the end of the road in sanctions yet, they expect even more far-reaching measures. Meanwhile, discussions about possible solutions are difficult. A planned meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was canceled by his US counterpart Antony Blinken.
From an industry perspective, oil stocks were in demand on Wednesday, which, as is so often the case, was due to the development of oil prices. Dropping at times, they picked up again recently due to the great uncertainty. Chevron were once again a beneficiary at the top of the Dow with an increase of 2.4 percent. ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips were also up in the broader market.
Otherwise, the eyes were directed to the retail sector with further figures. Home improvement chain Lowe’s beat Wall Street sales expectations and raised its outlook for the year. The papers, which rose significantly at times, still defended a small plus of 0.2 percent.
Tesla’s shares on the Nasdaq continued their recent downward trend. They fell by seven percent and reached their lowest level since September last year, well below the $800 mark. In the end, only a good 764 dollars were paid for the titles from the electric car manufacturer.
Technology stocks like Tesla were generally hit particularly hard. This was not only shown by the Nasdaq 100 with its particularly large losses, but also by the bottom of the Dow. With Apple, Microsoft and Cisco, three corporations that are assigned to this industry gathered there. The price losses were between 2.6 and 3.3 percent.
Among the small caps, the biopharmaceutical company Kodiak Sciences made negative headlines with a share price drop of 80 percent. A study of a drug used to treat age-related macular degeneration failed to meet a primary endpoint.
The high level of uncertainty slowed down the euro, and it gave up gains at times. It was last paid for at $1.1305. The European Central Bank had meanwhile set the reference rate at 1.1344 (Tuesday: 1.1342) dollars. The dollar thus cost 0.8815 (0.8817) euros.
Despite their generally safe haven status, US Treasuries also tended to be weak on Wednesday. The futures contract for ten-year Treasuries (T-Note Future) fell by 0.20 percent to 126.22 points. The opposite yield of government securities with this term rose to 1.99 percent./tih/he
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