Frankfort, New York
After the recent slide, some investors are taking the opportunity to re-enter the US stock market. However, the volatility on the commodity markets in connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine continued to worry them.
The US standard value index Dow Jones went 0.6 percent lower to 32,632 points from trading. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.3 percent to 12,795 points. The broad S&P 500 lost 0.7 percent to 4170 points.
WTI, the US crude oil, rose 4.4 percent to $124.71 a barrel (159 liters). In their slipstream, shares in oil companies such as Exxon, Chevron and Halliburton gained up to 5.2 percent. US President Joe Biden banned oil and natural gas imports from Russia.
“As long as the US does not impose secondary sanctions and thus force other countries to stop importing oil from Russia, we believe the impact of a US going it alone would be limited,” says Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch. The United States imported just 700,000 barrels of oil from Russia every day. In total, the country exports around seven million barrels a day, seven percent of global supply.
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The “anti-crisis currency” gold remained in demand. The price of the precious metal rose 2.6 percent to $ 2,050 per troy ounce (31.1 grams). The stocks listed in the US by the gold prospector Barrick then rose by up to 4.8 percent and, at $26.07, were as expensive as they were 16 months ago.
At the same time, the price of nickel went wild. The metal required for steel production at times recorded a record price jump of 111 percent and was more expensive than ever at $101,365 per ton. Commodity expert Al Munro from brokerage house Marex blamed a so-called short squeeze for this. Some investors who had bet on falling prices were apparently caught on the wrong foot by the Ukraine war. The metal exchange LME suspended trading in nickel for the time being.
This gave Polymet one of the biggest jumps in the company’s history. Shares in the US nickel miner rose more than 57 percent to a 12-month high of $4.78.
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Biontech: The Mainz-based company, which is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, is expanding its collaboration with the US biotech group Regeneron in the development of cancer therapies. The two partners are planning a joint clinical trial of Biontech’s cancer vaccine BNT116 in combination with Regeneron’s cancer drug Libtayo for the treatment of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer.
The cancer immunotherapy Libtayo was developed by Regeneron and the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi and is already approved for the treatment of various types of cancer, including monotherapy for the first-line treatment of adults with non-small cell lung cancer. After initial losses, the Biontech share rose by almost two percent, that of Regeneron fell by almost one percent.
Dick’s Sporting Goods: The retailer’s stock gained 3.5 percent after Dick’s released its fourth-quarter results. According to estimates compiled by data provider Refinitiv, the company beat expectations. Sales rose 2 percent, up from the fourth quarter of 2019 before the pandemic.
More: The sharp rise in oil prices is raising fears of a recession around the world