by Sinéad Carew and Amruta Khandekar
(Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange closed lower on Tuesday for its first session of 2023 on the backs of declines in Apple and Tesla, as investors worried about the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) forecast schedule for its rate hikes this year, ahead of the central bank’s “minutes”.
The Dow Jones index fell 0.03%, or 10.88 points, to 33,136.37 points.
The broader S&P-500 fell 15.36 points, or 0.40%, to 3,824.14 points.
The Nasdaq Composite fell 79.50 points (0.76%) to 10,386.99 points.
Tesla saw its shares plunge 12%, after hitting its lowest level since August 2020, following reports of quarterly shipment numbers lower than Wall Street estimates.
Apple lost 3.7% and fell to its worst closing since June 2021 after a report from Nikkei Asia highlighted weaker demand and an analyst downgraded his recommendation amid lower manufacturing in hard-hit China by a resurgence of the COVID-19 epidemic.
Among the major S&P-500 sectors, energy fell 3.6% as oil prices fell on weak economic data in China and concerns over the global economic outlook.
This session in the red is in line with a tough 2022 year for Wall Street, whose three major indexes posted their biggest annual decline since the 2008 financial crisis amid unprecedented Fed rate hikes since the 1980s.
“While times have changed, many issues for the market have not, primarily the Federal Reserve’s monetary tightening policy which is still concerned about inflation,” commented Chris Zaccarelli. , Chief Investment Officer at Independent Advisor Alliance, Charlotte, North Carolina.
Investors will review the minutes of the Fed’s December monetary policy meeting on Wednesday, after which the US central bank raised rates by 50 basis points and reported rates could stay high for longer than expected.
Weak labor markets may encourage the Federal Reserve to ease monetary tightening, but data suggests the labor market is resilient for now.
(French version Jean Terzian)
