On the eve of a long weekend, as Wall Street is closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were able to return to gains, but the Dow did not catch its breath.
The Dow Jones industrial index fell 0.56% to 35,911.81 points. On January 5 last year, it reached a level that was not there before, at 36,952.65 points.
Standard & Poor’s 500 added 0.08% to 4662.85 points. In intraday trading on January 4, it reached its highest value ever – 4818.62 points.
For its part, the Nasdaq Composite Technology Index added 0.59% to close at 14,893.75. Recall that on November 22 it reached a historical maximum of 16,212.23 points.
Banking was one of the Dow’s worst performers as investors were disappointed by JPMorgan Chase’s nearly 15% drop in Q4 2021 earnings compared to the same period in 2020.
Shares of JPMorgan fell 6.15% to $157.89.
Citigroup pcs. BlackRock, which also reported their accounts today, also fell in price by 1.25% and 2.19, respectively.
Wells Fargo turned out to be a bright spot in the bank, climbing 3.68% after announcing – also this Friday – better-than-expected results.
The techs, who had been punished in the last few days, were able to recover in the middle of the session. They still opened lower this Friday under pressure from a fresh signal for an imminent rate hike, but reversed the trend with some optimism to get back into the market.
At the beginning of the day, all US indices were in the red, still digesting the words of the head of the US Federal Reserve, Lael Brainard, who assured this Thursday that the central bank is ready to interest rate hike in Marchif the measure is necessary to fight inflation.
“Lael Brainard explicitly mentioned that the main priority of the Fed is to bring inflation down to values that are accepted as maximum, that is, at the level of 2%. A rise in the cost of living of three times that amount, with little sign that it could fall sharply in the first quarter, has led investors to speculate that central bank members’ thinking is now much more hawkish, not least because new members Joe Biden appointees, including Brainard, have more to do with a hawkish mentality than those who leave,” said Marco Silva, a consultant at ActivTrades, in his daily analysis.
Brainard’s position is consistent with what he said Fed President last Tuesday before the Senate. Jerome Powell said at his confirmation hearing that the Federal Reserve will be able to bring down inflation as long as the US economy recovers.
The Fed chairman said he would not hesitate to take action if necessary to contain price pressure. “If over time we have to raise interest rates more often, we will do it,” he stressed.
Retail sales data released today also did not improve investor sentiment. They fell 1.9% in December from the previous month, after seasonal adjustment. It was the first drop since the summer, largely due to an increase in cases of infection with the omicron variant of the coronavirus in the country.
In July, which was the last month of the drop in retail sales, this drop coincided with an increase in delta infections.
The market movement ended with a correction in favor of growth, in the case of the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, mainly due to the consolidation of positions before the holiday.
