Wall Street ends in the red after indicators and doubts about the Fed – 01/18/2023 at 22:27

by Sinead Carew and Shreyashi Sanyal

(Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange ended lower on Wednesday after weaker economic data and statements by U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) officials in favor of further interest rate hikes .

The Dow Jones index fell -1.81%, or 613.89 points, to 33,296.96 points.

The broader S&P-500 lost 62.11 points, or -1.56%, to 3,928.86 points.

The Nasdaq Composite fell for its part by 138.1 points (-1.24%) to 10,957.01 points.

Official data released Wednesday by the Departments of Commerce and Labor showed a bigger-than-expected drop in retail sales and producer prices in December.

“It looks like investors are finally coming to the conclusion that getting inflation under control has a cost, and the tightening the Fed has had to do will have an economic cost,” said Michael Reynolds, vice president of investments at Glenmede.

“It is possible that investors mistakenly thought that a soft landing in the economy was likely.”

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard and his Cleveland Fed colleague said the U.S. central bank needed to raise interest rates above 5% in order to curb the inflation.

In addition to interest rate concerns, investors are looking at corporate earnings.

IBM ended lower after Morgan Stanley lowered its recommendation to “weight online” from “overweight”.

PNC Financial Services Group was down after reporting revenue below market expectations in the fourth quarter.

Moderna, for its part, has made progress after the publication of data demonstrating the effectiveness of its vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

* The reminder of the session in Europe: [.EUFR]

* TO BE FOLLOWED ON THURSDAY:

(With the contribution of Amruta Khandekar; French version Camille Raynaud)