The stock market on Wall Street fell significantly. The Dow Jones closed at an all-day low and lost nearly 1,000 points. The single-day drop of 2.8% was the largest in a year and a half. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq also fell by more than 2.5%. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell threw out the strategy of “pre-raising interest rates”, and the market once once more adjusted interest rate hike expectations and asset pricing. All three major indexes fell between 1.8% and 3.8% on Wednesday, falling for at least three consecutive weeks.
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April 22 (Friday) Market Conditions
l Dow Jones It was down 981.36 points, or 2.82%, at 33,811.40. To sum up the week, the Dow fell 1.85%.
l S&P 500 Index It was down 121.88 points, or 2.77%, at 4,271.78. It fell 2.75% for the week.
l Nasdaq Index It was down 335.36 points, or 2.55%, at 12,839.29. It fell 3.83% for the week.
l New York May Oil Futures It closed at $102.07 a barrel, down $1.72 or 1.7%. It fell 4.1% for the week.
l New York June futures It closed at $1,934.3 an ounce, down $13.9, or 0.7%. It fell 2.1% for the week.
l U.S. 10-year Treasury bond yield It closed at 2.906 percent, down 1.1 pips.
Caterpillar fell 6.5 percent and was the worst performer on the Dow, while Verizon, which lost customers last quarter, fell 5.6 percent. Financial stocks also struggled, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley down more than 4 percent. Earlier relatively strong staples and medical stocks also lost ground. Costco fell 3.3% and Pfizer fell 2%. Technology stocks generally fell, Alphabet fell 4.2%, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon fell more than 2%, but Tesla closed only weak.
Twitter bucked the trend and rose regarding 4%. Oil service firm Schlumberger and care products maker Kimberly-Clark posted better-than-expected results, sending their shares up.
Powell stated the day before that he would raise interest rates quickly to suppress inflation, and also indicated that the meeting next month would discuss raising interest rates by half a percentage point. Interest rate futures show that the market is betting on the interest rate meeting in September, with a cumulative interest rate hike of 2%, which is 5%. , June, July and September will be increased by 50% each.
“The market is very nervous regarding the growing likelihood that the Fed will make a wrong policy decision,” Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group, said in a note. “When a Fed official suggested a half-percent hike, the market immediately started trying to price in a 0.75-percent hike — it was really crazy.”
In addition, Chinese concept stocks generally outperformed the market. The People’s Bank of China, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange issued statements at the same time, respectively saying that they would strengthen support for the real economy, respond to market concerns in a timely manner, and deny reports of foreign capital outflows. JD.com closed up 2.6%, Alibaba was steady, and Pinduoduo closed flat.
