NEW YORK (awp international) – The announcement of a surprisingly restrictive future US monetary policy also weighed on the New York stock exchanges on Thursday. The main Dow Jones Industrial index lost 2.25% to 33,202.22 points, which intensified the downward momentum. In the course of trading, it just missed the 33,000 mark it last traded below about five weeks ago.
The other major stock indexes also accelerated their weak development compared to the previous day: the market-wide S&P 500 waved 2.49% lower to 3895.75 points. The Nasdaq 100 pick index, which contains many stocks particularly sensitive to technology sector interests, eventually fell 3.37% to 11,345.22 points. A slew of rather weak US economic data had no discernible influence on prices. According to market observer Andreas Lipkow, however, they point to a significant economic slowdown in the world’s largest economy.
The Dow initially jumped to its highest level since April on Tuesday after a stronger-than-expected decline in inflation. Hope that the Fed would soon let go of the reins gave way to some disillusionment that same day — rightly so, as emerged after the Fed’s interest rate decision on Wednesday. As expected, US monetary authorities hiked the rate benchmark by just 0.5 percentage points after four meetings, each time by 0.75 percentage points. However, the hoped-for signal that interest rates would soon peak failed to materialize.
“The Fed has no plans to let interest rate hikes expire, despite falling inflation and risks of a recession,” said ActivTrades analyst Ricardo Evangelista, summing up Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s key message . “Interest rates will continue to rise in 2023 and stay high for longer than expected.” The European Central Bank (ECB) and the UK central bank also announced further hikes on Thursday after interest rate hikes were expected.
Novavax shares lost more than a third of their value in the US stock market, closing at $11.32. They thus marked their lowest level since the outbreak of the corona pandemic in spring 2020. The vaccine manufacturer caused a bad mood with the announcement of a capital increase. In addition, the British government has halved its order for the Nuvaxovid corona vaccine, which had already been adjusted several times. Novavax must repay part of the deposits received. Over the course of the pandemic, shares had temporarily jumped to a whopping $330.
At the bottom of the Nasdaq 100 on Thursday was video streaming service Netflix with its price down more than eight and a half percent. Here weighed a report from the technology portal “Digiday”, according to which a new subscription model with advertising has not yet achieved the audience figures promised to advertisers.
Shares of electric car maker Tesla, which were around half a percentage point stronger at the end of trading, managed to stabilize slightly after another low since November 2020. It has lost 55% in value since the start of the year. which means it is one of the last places in the technology selection index. Company chief Elon Musk, who likely lost his status as the world’s richest person following his takeover of stock news service Twitter, sold more shares between Dec. 12 and Dec. 14. It was the fourth time this year that Musk has had to part ways with billions of Tesla shares to fund his controversial Twitter buyout.
The euro received only a brief boost from the prospect of further interest rate hikes in the currency area: after jumping to 1.0735 dollars, the common currency quickly fell and cost 1.0622 dollars in trading in New York. However, it is still at its highest level since June. The ECB had set the reference rate at 1.0621 dollars.
US government bonds have been able to gain something. Finally, the 10-year bond futures contract (T-Note Future) gained 0.19% to 114.94 points. The 10-year government bond yield was 3.45%./dl/mn
— By Gerold Löhle, dpa-AFX —
