Fear of nuclear catastrophe
Fire at nuclear plant site weighs on Wall Street
03/04/2022 11:04 p.m
The shelling of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant Zaporizhia increases fears of a nuclear catastrophe. Wall Street is also feeling the effects. The major indices have to accept losses for the weekend.
Fears of a nuclear catastrophe in the wake of the war in Ukraine weighed on US stock markets at the end of a turbulent trading week. Fighting had taken place at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant near the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia, and fire had broken out on the site. Oil and commodity prices remained high, fueling fears of recession and inflation. The focus was also on the US employment market report and its influence on US monetary policy.
the Dow Jones Industrial closed down 0.53 percent at 33,614.80 points. This resulted in a weekly loss of around 1.3 percent for the leading US index. The market breadth S&P 500 fell 0.79 percent to 4328.87 points. For the technology-heavy selection index Nasdaq 100 it went down 1.41 percent to 13,837.83 points.
“The risks from the Ukraine war, the sanctions and counter-sanctions, high energy prices coupled with an uncertain oil and gas supply situation for Europe ensure that the environment on the financial markets continues to be fraught with risk and volatility,” said Erste Group experts.
Meanwhile, the US economy created significantly more jobs than expected in February. In addition, the increase in employment in the two previous months was revised upwards. The unemployment rate fell surprisingly significantly. The development of the labor market and high inflation made it necessary to adjust monetary policy, commented Ulrich Wortberg from Helaba.
Business figures caused movement for the individual stocks. The pistol manufacturer’s shares Smith & Wesson collapsed by 12.5 percent after a disappointing quarterly report. The titles of Costco lost 1.4 percent after the retail chain presented strong quarterly figures but warned of rising costs.
The clothing retailer’s shares gap jumped more than 10 percent in early trading after the annual figures were announced. Shortly thereafter, however, it rapidly went downhill into the red. Ultimately, they stagnated at the previous day’s level. A strong quarterly outlook left shares of the semiconductor maker Broadcom increase by 3 percent. At the software company splunk provided a report on the entry of the financial investor Hellman & Friedman for a price gain of almost 6 percent.
the euro exchange rate was last traded at $1.0934. In European business, the exchange rate of the common currency had fallen below the USD 1.09 mark for the first time since May 2020. The European Central Bank had set the reference rate at 1.0929 (Thursday: 1.1076) dollars. The dollar had cost 0.9150 (0.9029) euros.
US government bonds continued their recent steep upward trend. The ten-year futures contract treasuries (T-Note Future) rose 0.70 percent to 128.45 points. The yield on ten-year government bonds fell to 1.74 percent.