Traders at work at the New York Stock Exchange
Chuck Mikolajczak
NEW YORK (Archyde.com) – The New York Stock Exchange ended lower on Friday, still concerned regarding the risk of recession as the Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy in the face of lingering inflationary pressures.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 403.89 points, or 1.34%, to 29,634.83 points.
The broader S&P-500 lost 86.84 points (-2.37%), to 3,583.07 points.
The Nasdaq Composite fell 327 points (-3.08%) to 10,321.388 points.
On the week, the S&P lost 1.53%, the Dow Jones gained 1.18% and the Nasdaq fell 3.11%, according to preliminary data.
At the end of a rocky week on the equity markets, the indices opened higher before falling into negative territory following the publication of the University of Michigan confidence index for October, which reported a an improvement less than expected in the morale of American households and a deterioration in their inflation expectations over one year, to 5.1% once morest 4.7% in September.
“The scenario that we have already peaked in inflation is not obvious, which depresses the market,” said Anthony Saglimbene, market strategist at Ameriprise Financial.
On Thursday, US inflation data showed consumer prices rose more strongly than expected in September and underlying inflationary pressures continued to build.
Investors also digested the first quarterly results of companies, mainly those of the big banks, which reported a drop in their profits, however less sharp than expected by the markets, with the exception of Morgan Stanley, below expectations, which lost more than 5%.
JPMorgan (+1.66%), Citigroup (+0.6%) and Wells Fargo (+1.8%) did however do well.
The Kroger supermarket chain fell 7.3% following announcing the acquisition of its competition Albertsons Companies for 24.6 billion dollars.
Tesla dropped 7.5% following news reports that the electric car maker froze plans to produce batteries at its factory near Berlin due to technical issues.
Analysts now expect S&P 500 companies to average 3.6% year-on-year earnings growth, up from 11.1% expected in July, according to Refinitiv data.
(Written by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)