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Dec 19 (Reuters) – Wall Street stocks were in the red on Monday with the Nasdaq leading the declines as investors feared the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy tightening campaign could push the U.S. economy into a recession .
All three major U.S. stock indexes were on track for the fourth straight day of declines since Wednesday as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell sounded more hawkish than expected when the central bank raised interest rates. Powell promised further increases even as weak data showed signs of a weakening economy.
The S&P 500 (.SPX)the Dow Industrials (.DJI) and the Nasdaq sold off sharply in December, on track for its biggest annual declines since the 2008 financial crisis.
With no major earnings reports or economic data on Monday, investors focused on fears about the economy and interest rates, according to Melissa Brown, global head of applied research at Qontigo in New York. .
“It’s a knife’s edge between whether we’re going to tip into a recession or have a soft landing. Is the Fed acting appropriately?” said Brown who also noted that the moves may be overdone as many investors take vacations around the year-end holidays.
“Investors haven’t necessarily changed their view of the aggregate, but those who have are leading the market right now and driving larger changes in stock prices due to low trading volume,” he said. she declared.
At 2:27 p.m. ET (1927 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 278.55 points, or 0.85%, to 32,641.91, the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 45.88 points, or 1.19%, to 3,806.48 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) fell 175.96 points, or 1.64%, to 10,529.45.
The biggest sector declines on the day were communication services (.SPLRCL)Technology (.SPLRCT) and consumer discretionary (.SPLRCD). The strongest sector was energy (.SPNY)which was last down 0.4%.
Market heavyweights like Apple Inc (AAPL.O)Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.O) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN.O) created some of the biggest drags on the market.
Tesla Inc Trading (TSLA.O) was volatile, with the electric car maker’s stock falling 0.5% after falling 2.8% in the ensuing session a Twitter poll it showed that a majority of respondents want Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk to step down as CEO of the social media platform.
Metaplatforms (META.O) was down 3.9% after the European Commission said it could impose a fine up to 10% of the tech conglomerate’s annual worldwide turnover if there is evidence of a breach of EU antitrust laws.
L3Harris Technologies Inc (LHX.N) was down 2.8% after the United States defense contractor said it would buy hypersonic engine maker Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc (AJRD.N) for $4.7 billion. Aerojet added 1.5%.
Shares of casino operator Melco Resorts & Entertainment fell more than 9%; Las Vegas Sands Corporation (LVS.N) drop of nearly 2%; and Wynn Resorts (WYNN.O) fell more than 5% after Macau announced on Friday that six casino companies would invest around $15 billion under new 10-year contracts they signed to operate in the world’s largest gambling center.
Falling issues outnumbered rising ones on the NYSE by a ratio of 3.03 to 1; on the Nasdaq, a ratio of 2.81 to 1 favored the decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 5 new 52-week highs and 17 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 45 new highs and 393 new lows.
Reporting by Sinéad Carew, Sruthi Shankar, Shubham Batra, Johann M Cherian and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Maju Samuel and David Gregorio
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