Economic data dampen sentiment: record hunt on US stock exchanges ended for the time being

Tech stocks, and the Wall Street market as a whole, haven't had a really bad day since June. Pronounced profit-taking, especially in the technology sector, is putting an end to this and causing heavy losses for the US stock market indices.

After the recent soaring on Wall Street, investors are taking advantage of the opportunity to take profits. Of the Dow Jones index fell 2.8 percent or 808 points to 28,293. Of the S&P 500 index Lost 3.5 percent, the technology-heavy Nasdaq indices hit the hardest, they buckled by up to 5.2 percent. The fact that the losses were not even greater was due to a countermovement from the daily lows in the last few minutes of trading. Investors made especially in the favorites of the past few months – technology stocks like Amazon, Apple or Netflix – Cashbox. Your shares lost up to 8 percent.

Mixed economic data also put pressure on sentiment. The number of weekly initial applications turned out to be a little lower than feared. But the US foreign trade deficit climbed to its highest level in twelve years in July. For equity investors, however, these numbers provided a ray of hope, said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at brokerage firm AvaTrade. "They confirm that the economy is on a recovery course, but there is still a long way to go." This means that the US Federal Reserve will stick to its ultra-loose monetary policy for the foreseeable future.

At the same time, investors were hoping for the rapid development of a corona vaccine. The US is preparing to distribute a potential drug from October. "That is no guarantee that the vaccine will be ready by then," said analyst David Madden of the online broker CMC Markets. But it does provide clues about the pace of development. So posted Novavax a success for his vaccine candidate. The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published scientifically verified positive test results. The shares of the biotech company rose by eleven percent in the meantime, but then only closed with an increase of 0.5 percent.

In Europe, the pharmaceutical companies Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline ushered in the next round of tests for a vaccine. Against this background, investors took advantage of the travel and leisure values ​​that were particularly hard hit by the pandemic. The papers of the cruise operator Carnival and Royal Caribbean pulled by up to 4.5 percent on.

The titles of PVHwho are around 3.3 percent more expensive. Thanks to a booming online demand for comfortable casual wear, the owner of the fashion brands made "Calvin Klein" and "Thommy Hilfiger" contrary to the analyst assessment, profit.

At the Crude oil market the US WTI variety fell by half a percent to $ 41.30 per barrel (159 liters). Here, the declining US gasoline demand continues to overshadow the surprisingly strong drop in crude oil inventories, said Commerzbank analyst Eugen Weinberg. "Even more burdensome is that the kerosene demand has again fallen below a million barrels a day, almost 40 percent below the previous year's level."