Dow closes in the red
Apple climbs to all-time high
06/28/2023 11:36 p.m
The euphoria of the previous day has evaporated, traders on Wall Street are more cautious again and are banking on profit-taking. However, interest in tech stocks remains high, and Apple in particular is benefiting from this.
Under the spell of the central banks, US stock investors were on the move on Wednesday with the handbrake on. The Dow Jones Index the standard values closed 0.2 percent lower at 33,852 points. The tech-heavy one Nasdaq on the other hand, advanced 0.3 percent to 13,591 jobs. The broad one S&P 500 closed almost unchanged at 4376 points.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s statements at the European Central Bank’s (ECB) annual monetary policy conference in Sintra, Portugal, where he once again held out the prospect of further interest rate hikes, came as little surprise. Powell didn’t change his tone, reiterating that a next step would depend on the data, said Peter Cardillo, an economist at Spartan Capital Securities. “The Fed will continue to fight inflation until it sees either signs of a slowdown in the labor market or more concrete signs that inflation is coming down,” said Patrick Kaser, chief executive and portfolio manager at Brandywine Global. “If the Fed makes a mistake, they’re more likely to tighten monetary policy than to ease too soon. So these comments are pretty consistent in that regard.”
Traders see about an 80 percent chance that the Fed will hike rates by 25 basis points to 5.25-5.50 percent in July. The dollar index, which measures value against major currencies, rose 0.5 percent to 102.98 points. The Euro fell 0.4 percent to $1.0912. According to its President Christine Lagarde, the ECB cannot yet see enough signs of a slowdown in the price surge in the euro area.
On the crude oil market, shrinking US oil inventories attracted buying interest. Grade Crude Oil Brent US light oil rose 1.9 percent to $73.63 a barrel STI down 2.2 percent to $69.19. Thanks to rising crude oil exports, reserves shrunk by 9.6 million barrels in the past week, more than analysts had expected, according to data from the US Energy Agency EIA.
“Häagen-Dazs” provider disappointed
Equity investors mainly grabbed tech companies. Climbed in the course of this Apple an all-time high over the course of $189.90. “The market is heavily focused on the only real source of growth, which is the technology sector and in particular the AI sector, which has significantly elevated the valuation of this sector relative to the rest of the market,” said Michael Green, portfolio manager at Simplify Asset Management.
Meanwhile, renewed tensions in the trade dispute between the USA and China caused significant losses in the chip sector. According to a newspaper report, the US government is considering tightening licensing regulations for the export of special chips for artificial intelligence (AI) to China. The papers of the industry giant Nvidia fell 1.8 percent. Intel lost 1.5 percent.
A wall outlook put the stock from General Mills negative pressure. The title of the US provider of “Haagen-Dazs” ice cream fell by 5.2 percent. The company expects earnings per share to grow between four and six percent in 2024. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv assumed an average of almost six percent.