NEW YORK (awp international) – Wall Street investors have slipped back into reverse following recent gains. On Monday, the cyclically sensitive technology stocks in particular came under pressure. Investors acted more cautiously because of the continued smoldering uncertainty surrounding the Omikron coronavirus variant. In addition, at the beginning of the week, the market felt the fear of a tightened monetary policy to combat the unbroken high inflation.
The Dow Jones Industrial fell 0.89 percent to 35,650.95 points on Monday. The market-wide S&P 500 lost 0.91 percent to 4668.97 meters. The technology-oriented Nasdaq 100 was down 1.53 percent to 16 082.55 points.
The coming days will be dominated by monetary policy – including the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision on Wednesday. “In view of the constant high inflation in the United States, the markets expect further signals in terms of interest rate turnaround,” said market observer Timo Emden with a view to the Fed meeting. The Federal Reserve is expected to respond to high inflation and accelerate the exit from its extremely loose stance. At the moment, however, the market is again asking to what extent Omikron could restrict its monetary policy leeway again.
The corona worries that flared up again weighed on shares in the aircraft and travel industry. For example, Boeing’s papers fell 3.7 percent at the Dow end. For the shares of the airlines American Airlines and United Airlines it went down by around five percent each. The shareholders of the cruise operator Royal Caribbean had to cope with a minus of 4.4 percent. Renewed tightening of the corona regulations would hit companies from these sectors hard again.
At the top of the Dow, Coca-Cola shares rose 2.6 percent. Analyst Andrea Teixeira from the bank JPMorgan had previously set in a study on growth at the brewing group in the coming year. In addition, the strong brand suffered less from cost pressure and, on top of that, the papers were cheap.
The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which is listed in the S&P 500, plans to take over the pharmaceutical company Arena Pharmaceuticals. Pfizer is offering arena stockholders $ 100 per security for this purpose. The shares of Arena Pharmaceuticals soared by a good 80 percent to around 90 dollars and Pfizer investors were also pleased, as the increase of 4.6 percent showed.
The pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb wants to increase its dividend and also distribute billions to investors through a share buyback. The share certificates among the biggest winners in the S&P 500 soared by 4.8 percent.
Among the technology stocks, Apple shares initially continued their record run before the momentum subsided in the face of the weak overall market. In the early days of trading, the computer company almost cracked the $ 3 trillion mark for the first time in terms of market capitalization. The shares lost around two percent in the end.
The euro was last traded at $ 1.1287. The European Central Bank set the reference rate at 1.1278 (Friday: 1.1273) dollars. The dollar cost 0.8867 (0.8871) euros. US Treasuries benefited from the weak Wall Street. The futures contract for ten-year Treasuries rose 0.38 percent to 130.91 points. The return on ten-year government bonds was 1.42 percent./la/men
— By Lutz Alexander, dpa-AFX —
– .
