“A lot of bad news”
Crypto assets drag down Wall Street
08/19/2022 10:53 p.m
The week on Wall Street ends with losses. Above all, growth-dependent technology stocks, especially crypto stocks, are being sold. On the other hand, a genetic engineering company is making double-digit gains because it could benefit from the monkeypox virus.
Concerns about inflation and interest rates have pushed US stock markets down. Investors parted with growth-dependent technology stocks in particular. Of the Dow Jones Index the standard values closed 0.9 percent lower at 33,706 points. The tech-heavy one Nasdaq fell two percent to 12,705 points. The broad one S&P 500 lost 1.3 percent to 4228 points. “There is a lot of individual bad news here today that is manifesting itself in a general market sell-off,” said Dennis Dick, trader at Triple D Trading.
Among other things, Fed officials were determined to fight high inflation with further interest rate hikes. James Bullard, President of the St. Louis Fed, had said Thursday he was leaning towards supporting a third straight 75 basis point rate hike in September.
The Federal Reserve has steadily increased the monetary policy level since the interest rate hike in March and has now raised it to the range of 2.25 to 2.50 percent. Next week’s focus will be Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech on the economic outlook at the annual conference of global central banks in Jackson Hole.
Crypto assets under pressure
Added to this were disappointing company balance sheets, such as from Deere & Co. The world’s largest heavy equipment manufacturer continues to struggle with parts shortages stemming from supply chain issues. The shares fell at times by 3.8 percent. Thanks to purchases by bargain hunters, however, they were able to recoup their losses and closed with a plus of 0.4 percent.
Cryptocurrency and blockchain related stockn fell after a sudden selloff in Bitcoin. Securities from crypto exchange Coinbase Global and prospector Marathon Digital fell by up to 15.4 percent. Bitcoin was down around eight percent at $21,547. Traders were initially unable to find any reason for the price slide.
Hopes of a lucrative business from diagnostic testing for the monkeypox virus drove shares of Applied DNA Sciences by up to 28 percent. The company had submitted a permit to the authorities of the state of New York for its PCR-based process.
Shares were buoyed by the prospect of the first dividend in more than two years GM up. The automaker’s stock rose 2.5 percent. GM stopped paying dividends in the first wave of Corona in April 2020 in order to preserve its liquidity in the crisis.
Euro falls to five-week low
In view of the speculation on further aggressive rate hikes in the USA, the dollar index by half a percent to 108.05 points. He was left behind Eurowhich traded at a five-week low of $1.0033 and is back close to parity.
The German producer prices, which were rising at a record pace, fueled fears of a continuation of the inflation dynamic in the euro area. Prices rose by an average of 37.2 percent in July, mainly because natural gas and electricity continued to drive up the costs for producers. The returns from government bonds attracted. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury rose to 2.978 percent from 2.880 percent previously.