(Photo: AP)
new York The day before the eagerly awaited decision on US monetary policy, nervousness rises on Wall Street. The Dow Jones standard value index closed on Tuesday 0.3 percent lower to 35,544 points. The technology-heavy Nasdaq was down 1.1 percent to 15,237 points. The broad S&P 500 lost 0.7 percent to 4634 points.
The central bank Fed is expected to announce an accelerated throttling of its security purchases on Wednesday, said analyst Lukman Otunuga of the online broker FXTM. This stirs up speculation about premature rate hikes. “Investors see the likelihood of at least one rate hike by the beginning of May at 73 percent.” Such a step by mid-June at the latest is considered agreed. The unexpectedly strong rise in US producer prices encouraged stockbrokers in their expectation of a tightened monetary policy by the Fed. The path of least resistance will lead to a more aggressive tightening of US monetary policy in 2022, forecast investment strategist Michael Hewson from brokerage firm CMC Markets.
Against this background, investors mainly sold technology stocks. The shares of Amazon, Apple, Netflix, the Facebook operator Meta and the Google parent Alphabet fell by up to 1.3 percent. According to experts, higher interest rates devalue future profits of these high-growth companies.
Musk announcement boosts Dogecoin
Elon Musk caused a stir in cryptocurrencies. The announcement by the Tesla boss that his company will accept Dogecoin to pay for merchandising products in the future helped the cryptocurrency, which started as a parody of Bitcoin, to a price increase of almost 40 percent at times to 0.2175 dollars. The decision is fueling speculation that Tesla will again accept Bitcoin as a means of payment for its electric vehicles in the future, said analyst Timo Emden from Emden Research.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
On the other hand, the oil price went down again. The US variety WTI fell in price by almost two percent to 69.93 dollars per barrel (159 liters). Investors worried about a possible decline in demand because of the newly discovered Omikron variant of the corona virus, said stockbrokers. In addition, in the coming year the supply will exceed the demand because of the expanded OPEC production and the release of strategic reserves of several countries, predicted Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch.
US stock market expert Koch: “Is the US Federal Reserve slowing Wall Street?”
Look at the individual values
Game stop: The video game retailer’s title – one of the so-called “meme” shares – increased by more than three percent over the course of trading. As recently as yesterday, Monday, the paper slipped by almost 14 percent to its lowest level since March. The company reported a major quarterly loss last week.
AMC Entertainment: The cinema operator’s share has now risen by more than three percent. As recently as yesterday, Monday, the share fell by more than 15 percent. The reason for this price slide are the share sales by CEO Adam Aron and CFO Sean Goodman in the past week.
MGM Resorts: The shares of MGM Resorts, however, rose 2.2 percent. The casino operator is selling the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, where the magicians Siegfried & Roy had performed for decades, for $ 1.08 billion to Hard Rock International, the operator of the Hard Rock Cafes.
Beyond Meat: The share of the manufacturer of vegetable meat substitute products rose at times by around seven percent. The analysts at Piper Sandler upgraded the stock from “underweight” to “neutral”. They believe that a nationwide rollout at McDonald’s could be in less than three months.
Weibo: In terms of stocks, Weibo was one of the biggest losers. Chinese Twitter rival’s Wall Street-listed titles fell as much as five percent to a six-year low of $ 28.46 after the Beijing government fined the company for violating cybersecurity law. In the end there was a minus of 3.5 percent. Because investors feared further pressure on companies with stock exchange listings in the USA, papers from the electric car manufacturer Nio or the search engine operator Baidu lost up to four percent.
Over: Uber’s shares soared by a good four percent. Stock marketers cited encouraging statements from company boss Dara Khosrowshahi at an analyst event as the reason. In terms of gross bookings, the travel agent achieved a record in the last week. In the wake of this, the papers of the competitor Lyft gained one and a half percent.
Alcoa: The shares of the aluminum manufacturer rose at times by more than six percent. The company will be included in the S&P Midcap 400 index next Monday. It replaces Hill-Rom Holdings, which is being acquired by Baxter International.
Dell Technologies: Evercore analysts downgraded the computer manufacturer’s share from “outperform” to “in line”. The experts pointed to the growth in value of Dell of almost 60 percent this year in view of a weakening PC market. The Dell shares lost almost two percent.
Terminix: Terminix stocks jumped 18 percent. British rival Rentokil plans to take over the exterminator for $ 55 per share, or a total of $ 6.7 billion. According to his first calculations, the merger will increase net profit by 20 percent, commented analyst Kean Marden of the Jefferies investment bank. However, it will take several years for the acquisition to pay off.
More: Bet on winners or hope for a turnaround? These opportunities are in the Dax outliers.