WALL STREET CLOSING DOWN
by Chuck Mikolajczak
NEW YORK (Archyde.com) – The New York Stock Exchange ended the first quarter on a negative note, ending lower on Thursday and the S&P-500 posting its largest quarterly decline in two years amid growing concerns over the war in Ukraine and its inflationary impact on prices.
The Dow Jones index fell 1.56%, or 550.46 points, to 34,678.35 points.
The broader S&P-500 lost 72.04 points, or 1.57%, to 4,530.41 points.
The Nasdaq Composite fell for its part by 221.76 points (1.54%) to 14,220.52 points.
As optimism over a breakthrough in peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv helped push major Wall Street indices earlier this week, hopes for a diplomatic outcome quickly faded, with the military Russian which continued its bombardments in the north of Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin’s remarks on Thursday did not help: the Russian president announced that Moscow would demand from this Friday that buyers from “unfriendly” foreign countries pay in rubles for deliveries of natural gas.
The United States imposed new sanctions once morest Russia during the day, while US President Joe Biden decided to tap into the country’s oil reserves in an unprecedented way in an attempt to allay fears of a shortage and an outbreak. increased prices.
Wall Street is particularly sensitive to the latest developments in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which has had the effect of accentuating the already galloping inflation in the United States, where the prices of fuel and metals have soared since the beginning of the Russian offensive on February 24.
Faced with this rise in inflation, it is increasingly expected that the US Federal Reserve (Fed) will adopt a more aggressive monetary policy, with measures that might weigh on economic growth.
Data released today showed US consumer prices barely rose in February as pressures intensified.
Investors are now awaiting the publication of data on the US labor market on Friday, looking for signals to anticipate the contours of the Fed’s next measures.
All sectors of the S&P-500 ended in the red. Up sharply since the start of the year, energy fell on Joe Biden’s announcement and OPEC+’s decision to maintain current production levels.
In decline at the start of the year due to inflation fears in particular, the main Wall Street indices rebounded in March, despite the war in Ukraine: over the month, the S&P-500 rose by 3.6%, the Dow Jones by 2.3% and the Nasdaq by 3.4%.
Over the quarter, however, all three declined, with the S&P-500 marking its largest quarterly decline (4.9%) since the start of 2020, at the height of the coronavirus health crisis in the United States. The Dow Jones fell 4.6% over the period and the Nasdaq fell 9.1%.
(French version Jean Terzian)
