The US stock market reacted little on Wednesday to central bank chief Jerome Powell’s comments that he expects more interest rate hikes this year. The Fed chief also added that it could happen at a solid pace.
Kim Forrest of Bouquet Capital Partners told CNBC that today everyone is focused on the comments of the big four central banks. He also added that it looks like the market wants to go higher, but the warning of a rate hike puts a slight damper on the mood today.
On Wednesday, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.02 percent to 4,377.18, while the Nasdaq Technology Index rose 0.27 percent to 13,591.75. The Dow Jones index fell 0.21 percent to 33,853.91.
The volatility index – the VIX – fell 2.77 percent to 13.96, while the 10-year US government bonds were at 3.714 percent.
oil and gas
US crude oil inventories fell by 9.6 million barrels last week to 453.7 million barrels. This was according to statistics released by the Statistics Division of the US Department of Energy, on Wednesday.
Up front, inventories were expected to drop by 1.8 million barrels, according to Trading Economics.
At the close, Brent crude rose 2.43% to $74.00 a barrel, while WTI rose 2.92% to $69.68 a barrel.
US natural gas fell 4.71 percent on Wednesday to $2.65 a barrel. million British thermal units, while European gas (TTF) decreased by 2.05 percent to 33.80 euros / MWh.
movements
Facebook owner Meta, Amazon, Netflix, Apple and Alphabet (aka FAANG shares) had a mixed day in the stock market on Wednesday:
- Facebook fell 0.62% to $285.29.
- Amazon shares fell 0.11% to $129.04.
- Apple shares rose 0.63 percent to $189.25.
- Netflix rose 3.05 percent to $429.84.
- Alphabet shares rose 1.58 percent to $120.18.
Apple closed at an all-time high today and sniffed out a market value of $3,000 billion, equal to 32,280 billion kronor and more than twice the value of the oil fund, which now stands at 15.215 billion kronor. MarketWatch writes that the stake must stand at more than $190.75 for the company to have a stock market value of more than $3,000 billion.
Semiconductor stocks fell after the Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration is preparing more restrictions on the sale of sensitive AI chips to China.
NVIDIA shares fell 1.81 percent and Advanced Micro Devices fell 0.19 percent. The former is still up more than 160 percent so far this year.
Otherwise, Pinterest rose 6.59 percent to $28.14 after Wells Fargo upgraded the stock from neutral to outperforming and raised its price target from $23 to $34.
encryption
At the closing time on Wall Street, bitcoin trading was down 2.14 percent to $30,014.26 per coin dollar. Ethereum was trading down 3.66 percent to $1,829.26 per coin at the time of the close.
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