Deeper in the sell off Wall, at -4.2% the Nasdaq

LAST UPDATE 22:45

The main indicators of Wall Street continue in the deep red on Monday as fears for the resilience of the American economy prevail today in the coming months as the Federal Reserve will indulge in successive interest rate hikes in order to curb the highest inflation of the last 40 years.

Last week, the Fed raised interest rates by 50 basis points to 0.75% to 1%, with central bank chairman Jerome Powell trying to calm things down, reassuring markets that the bank was not considering higher interest rate hikes. 75 base units that could derail economic growth.

Atlanta Fed Chairman Raphael Bostic made the same statement today in Bloomberg. “For me, 50 basis points is already a pretty aggressive move. I do not think we need to move even more aggressively,” Bostic said in an interview with the agency.

However, the statements of the Fed executives do not seem to allay concerns about the risk of recession or stagflation as the US economy not only has to deal with rising interest rates, but also the slowdown in China amid massive lockdowns, the war in Ukraine and disruptions in global supply chains.

Indicators – Statistics

On the board, the Dow Jones lost 616.31 points or -1.87% at 32,269.08 points, while the broader S&P 500 fell 127.62 points or -3.10% to 3,995.88 points. The technology Nasdaq drops by 509.24 points or -4.19% to 11,634.34 points.

The negative protagonist is today the energy sector with the S&P 500 Energy falling more than 5% as the Oil prices are plunging more than 4% today.

Of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones industrial average, seven are moving with a positive sign and 23 with a negative one. The biggest gainer is 3M with gains of $ 2.97 or 1.99% at $ 152.50, followed by Amgen with $ 293.53 with gains of 1.28% and Walmart with gains of 1.14% at $ 151.27.

On the other hand, the three stocks with the biggest losses are Boeing (-10.06%), Chevron (-7.03%) and Visa (-4.64%).

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the broader S&P 500 closed last week with small losses of 0.2%, while the technology Nasdaq fell 1.5%. The weekly losses came after wild fluctuations for the indices, with the Dow losing more than 1,000 points on Thursday, in the worst session of the last five years, after jumping 900 points on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the upward trend in bond yields continues to put pressure on the indices. The yield on the 10-year US is close to 3.12% having surpassed earlier and 3.2% after closing last week at the highest level since November 2018.

The climate is aggravated today by the worrying data from China. Government data released today showed that exports rose 3.7% year-on-year in April, slowing significantly from the previous month when they jumped 15.7%. Imports, meanwhile, rose just 0.7%, reflecting weak demand.

In business developments, US-based biotechnology company BioNTech announced that first-quarter earnings more than tripled to 3.7 billion euros or 14.24 euros per share, from 1.13 billion euros or 4.39 euros per share. Revenues climbed to 6.38 billion euros from 2.05 billion euros.