After the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last interest rate meeting were released on Wednesday evening, there were small effects in the market. At the opening, all three trend-setting indices rose, but later in the trade it reversed, before stabilizing with a broad rise at half past nine. This is how it looked at closing time:
- The Dow Jones rose 0.33 percent.
- The S&P 500 rose 0.53 percent.
- The Nasdaq rose 0.72 percent.
Netflix ended down 3.3 percent after the company announced that it will implement price cuts on its subscription services by up to 50 percent in over 100 countries. It writes Bloomberg. The price cut will mainly be implemented in low-income regions where the electricity giant has fewer customers, and will have an impact on more than ten million customers in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, among others.
The Moderna share ended down 6.7 percent after the vaccine manufacturer reported disappointing quarterly figures on Thursday, which fell short of the market’s expectations. The decline is due, among other things, to higher costs and the recently published royalty payment to US health authorities in connection with the development of the company’s corona vaccine. It writes Reuters.
The online shopping giant Ebay warned yesterday Wednesday about reduced demand in the first half of 2023. The share ended today down 5.22 percent.
An hour before the stock market opened, new figures for unemployment benefits and economic growth in the USA came out. According to the US Department of Labor, there were 192,000 first-time applicants for unemployment benefits last week, slightly less than previously expected. For six weeks in a row, the number of applicants has remained below 200,000, which underlines how tight the American labor market is, writes FT.
The US’s economic growth is also measured somewhat lower than the forecasts indicated. Revised figures for the fourth quarter show GDP growth of 2.7 per cent on an annual basis, while 2.9 per cent was expected in advance.
In recent weeks, surprisingly solid key economic figures for both the US and the eurozone have caused investors to fear sharper lye from the central banks. The markets are now pricing in three further interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.
On Wednesday evening came the minutes from the interest rate meeting held in February, where the key interest rate was raised by 0.25 percentage points to today’s range of 4.5-4.75 per cent. According to the minutes, “almost everyone” in the monetary policy committee agreed on the interest rate hike, while some wanted a stronger hike of 50 basis points.
The Fed maintains that the key interest rate must be kept high until it sees “clear evidence” that galloping inflation is slowing down. The US manages an inflation target of two percent.
Thursday’s stock market opening in the US follows a rise on European stock exchanges. The main index on Oslo Børs is up around one percent, helped by a solid lift in oil prices, while other key indices in Europe are rising more moderately.(Terms)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and/or our suppliers. We would like you to share our cases using 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 further terms see here.
