New York Stocks End: Dow Under Pressure – Tech Stocks Rise – 3/19/21

The US leading index Dow Jones Industrial (Dow Jones 30 Industrial) increased its slight previous day losses on Friday. Another clear …

NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The US leading index Dow Jones Industrial (Dow Jones 30 Industrial) expanded its slight previous day losses on Friday. Another significant rise in yields on the bond market put pressure on sentiment. Rising interest rates, for example, make bonds more attractive as an alternative to investing in stocks. As a burden, there were losses in bank stocks and especially in the papers of Visa.

The Dow fell 0.71 percent to 32,627.97 points after peaking the day before and then slipping into the red. On a weekly basis, there is a loss of 0.46 percent.

The market-wide S&P 500 closed minimally in the red at 3913.10 points on Friday. The technology-heavy NASDAQ 100 recovered somewhat from its previous day’s losses and rose 0.61 percent to 12,866.99 points. In view of the further rise in market interest rates, this had suffered on Thursday with a minus of more than 3 percent from the prospect of a deterioration in the financing conditions of tech companies.

The futures contract for ten-year Treasuries (T-Note Future) recently fell 0.11 percent to 131.23 points. In return, the yield on ten-year government bonds rose to 1.73 percent.

Stock marketers justified the latest rise in yields with the fact that the US Federal Reserve is surprisingly allowing a support measure taken during the Corona crisis to expire. Specifically, it concerns an exception to the SLR equity rule. The rule stipulates how much equity the banks must hold for various assets on their books in order to compensate for possible losses.

The Fed’s decision was not exactly expected, as some market participants had advocated an extension. On the US bond market, which is affected by the changes, prices fell noticeably. In return, yields rose – presumably out of concern that demand for government bonds could now decline.

Against this backdrop, bank stocks did not suffer well at the end of the week. Goldman Sachs fell by around 1 percent and JPMorgan (JPMorgan ChaseCo) by 1.6 percent. However, both shares had reached record highs the day before and thus profited from rising bond yields – in the hope of better interest rate deals.

Furthermore, the shares of Nike lost around four percent in the Dow. The world’s largest sporting goods manufacturer continues to benefit from the online shopping boom in the corona pandemic. But analysts had expected higher revenues.

At the end of the index, Visa’s papers buckled by more than six percent. According to a press report, the credit card giant is targeted by the US Department of Justice. The authority is investigating on suspicion of possible anti-competitive practices, wrote the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter. The investigators are therefore examining whether the group could have prevented merchants from processing debit card payments via cheaper networks. A Visa spokesman said after the stock market closed that they were cooperating with the authorities on this matter.

At the top of the S&P 500, FedEx shares rose a good six percent. The Post rival (Deutsche Post) had earned significantly better in the most recent fiscal quarter thanks to the order boom in the pandemic.

The euro suffered somewhat from the sharp rise in US bond yields, trading at $ 1.1904 after the New York market closed. The European Central Bank had set the reference rate at 1.1891 (Thursday: 1.1912) dollars. The dollar cost 0.8410 (0.8395) euros./la/fba

— By Lutz Alexander, dpa-AFX —

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