There was a sharp fall in tech on Wall Street on Thursday. The Nasdaq fell to 10,317.01 shortly after 7:30pm. This is a new low for the year.
However, the technology index rallied slightly and closed at 10,476.12.
The major US stock market indexes have all fallen since early Thursday, before the fall widened during the trading day. Here’s how the key indexes closed:
- The S&P 500 collective index, which comprises 500 of the largest publicly traded companies in the United States, fell 1.44%.
- The Nasdaq Composite, dominated by technology companies, fell 2.18%.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average, made up of 30 hand-picked stocks deemed important, fell 1.04%
The good Christmas mood that investors had on Wednesday, which sent US stocks higher, thus vanished after surprising numbers showing a US economy even better than expected.
Concern about how long the US central bank will have to keep its key interest rate high continues to affect investors on Thursday.
Before the stock market opened, final data on US economic growth in the third quarter, measured by gross domestic product (GNP), was released. Annualized growth ended at 3.2 percent, while preliminary data presented at the end of November showed growth of 2.9 percent.
Annualizing quarter-to-quarter growth means turning change into annual growth. This is the growth you will get if the quarterly change continues for a full year. The growth in the third quarter comes after two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
The number of first-time jobless claimants in the US at 216,000, about as expected in advance.
Tesla collapse
Tesla stock continued its slump on Thursday, dropping nearly nine percent. Since the end of August, Tesla’s market value has more than halved.
There is still a lot of attention paid to Elon Musk, and especially his prolific Twitter activity. Musk actually quit as head of Twitter after most of a poll he organized, right on Twitter, asked him to stop. 57.5% of the more than 17 million Twitter users who voted want Musk out of the boss’s chair.
Ugly December
Thursday’s drop comes after Wednesday’s recovery, driven by, among other things, surprisingly positive numbers for US consumer confidence in the economy. Better-than-expected results, including from sports equipment giant Nike and shipping company FedEx, also contributed.
However, December has so far been unhappy for stock market investors. The month of Christmas usually brings a boost, but so far the broad S&P 500 index is down about six percent, weighed down by fears of recession, inflation and aggressive central bankers.
The S&P 500 is forecast for a drop of nearly six percent in December, including today’s drop. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is set for a nearly 8% decline in December and then a more than 30% decline in 2022.(Terms)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and/or our suppliers. We would like you to share our cases using the links, which lead directly to our pages. Copying or other forms of use of all or part of the content may only take place with written permission or as permitted by law. For additional terms see her.
