new York Wall Street investors are once again concerned that interest rates will continue to rise. The Dow Jones index of standard values closed 0.6 percent lower on Wednesday at 33,949 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 1.7 percent to 11,910 points. The broad S&P 500 lost 1.1 percent to 4,117 jobs.
Investors were concerned about the latest interest rate statements from US central bankers. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Tuesday he expected 2023 to be a year of “significant falls in inflation”. However, the fight against inflation will also take some time.
“Underlying concerns about how high rates need to go are bubbling up again,” said Susannah Streeter, market analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. The President of the New York Federal Reserve, John Williams, locates the peak in the key interest rate at a level of 5 to 5.25 percent. Markets are currently betting that it will rise over 5 percent in May before peaking at 5.18 percent by July.
AI imagination powers Microsoft
At times, Microsoft shares rose by more than two percent. In the end, however, the shares turned 0.3 percent into the red. The group wants to upgrade its Bing web search with an even more powerful variant of the artificial intelligence (AI) ChatGPT from Open AI and thus attack market leader Google. This in turn wants to integrate its AI software “Bard” into its search engine. However, in an online Google ad, Bard gave an incorrect answer, which investors apparently took as a setback. Papers from Google parent Alphabet lost around seven percent.
Investors jumped at the football club’s shares after a media report about a possible takeover of Manchester United by investors from Qatar. Stocks rose 10.5 percent. According to a report in the British newspaper “Daily Mail”, Qatari investors want to make a purchase offer for the first division soccer team.
In addition, the stock exchanges once again had to digest a flood of company balance sheets. Fortinet’s surprisingly good prospects pulled shares of the software security firm and its peers higher. With its forecasts for the quarter and full year, the company is above the expectations of stockbrokers, which drove the shares by almost eleven percent. In the wake of this, Palo Alto grew by around four percent.
A forecast reduction for the current year and a poor outlook for 2024 by Capri Holdings, which specializes in designer fashion, scared investors. Shares fell more than 23 percent.
Look at other individual values
Above: Shares of the ride-hailing service provider rose 5.53 percent after fourth-quarter earnings beat analyst estimates. Uber earned 29 cents a share. Analysts had assumed a loss of 18 cents. Uber’s quarterly revenue rose 49 percent year over year. According to CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, 2022 ended with its “strongest quarter ever”, crowning its “strongest year”.
Chipotle Mexican Grill: Shares of the restaurant chain fell 4.94 percent after disappointing quarterly results. According to Chipotle, customers reduced their restaurant spending in the fourth quarter. “Around the holidays, we just haven’t seen the momentum that we usually see,” Chief Financial Officer Jack Hartung said on a conference call.
CVS: A multi-billion dollar acquisition of CVS Health was well received by investors. The shares of the healthcare group and pharmacy operator rose by more than three percent. CVS pays around 9.5 billion dollars for the operator of medical first aid centers Oak Street Health and enters a new business area.
New York Times: Investors in the New York Times are optimistic about the future after the number of subscribers has increased. The shares climbed 12 percent.
Coty: The US cosmetics company is counting on stable demand from its customers and higher prices and intends to increase its profits in the current 2022/23 financial year. Coty, which offers fragrances under the Hugo Boss or Gucci brands, among other things, is also preparing some price increases in view of rising costs, said CFO Laurent Mercier. The stock fell 1.84 percent.
Stock market expert Koch: “Profit-taking despite solid results”
Lumen Technologies: The cloud network data company fell 20.84 percent after reporting a fourth-quarter loss of $3.1 billion. And the adjusted earnings forecast for this year missed estimates.
Tripadvisor: Shares of the online travel company rose 3.81 percent after Bank of America twice upgraded the stock to “buy.” The bank expects TripAdvisor to rise nearly 60 percent as consumers book more trips.
Illumina: The biotechnology company’s shares fell 7.99 percent. The company had reported revenue of $1.08 billion for the fourth quarter, down 10 percent from the same period last year.
More: That’s what fund managers expect in this stock market year