Wall Street opens in red, Dow down 1.18%

New York, December 17 (EFE). – Wall Street opened the day in the red with its main index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, down 1.18% and heading for a week of losses, after the Federal Reserve on Wednesday advanced its cash. politics for the next few months.

Ten minutes after the start of the session on the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow Jones index fell by 424.36 points to 35,473.28 points. While the selective S&P 500 lost 0.77%, or 36.18 units, to 4,632.49.

For its part, the Nasdaq Market Composite Index, in which technology companies with the highest valuation were listed, fell 0.57%, or 87.24 integers, to 15,093.19.

The New York Stock Exchange woke up full of bad omens a day after its three major indexes closed in the red while reassessing Wednesday’s announcement from the Federal Reserve, which confirmed that it would accelerate the reduction of its bond-buying program, the economic stimulus it provided in the face of the crisis caused by the Corona virus.

Similarly, the US central bank has left interest rates unchanged for the time being in the 0%-0.25% range, despite the fact that inflation held at an annual rate of 6.8% in November, the highest figure in nearly 40. years in the country.

According to analysts, investors are concerned about the impact of these measures on economic growth, while the technology sector may suffer from the impact of increased interest rates.

“As the Federal Reserve becomes more aggressive and expectations of higher interest rates, investors are reducing exposure to stocks” in fast-growing technology companies, said Jim Paulsen, chief investment analyst at The Leuthold Group, as reported by CNBC.

Moreover, the fear that inflation will continue to rise continues to weigh on market sentiment.

“The primary fear in the market is inflation,” David Donabedian, chief investment officer at CIBC Private With, was quoted as saying by the Wall Street Journal, citing the central bank may need to accelerate rate hikes.

By sectors, the vast majority started the day negative as energy (-2.25%) was the hardest hit, along with finance (2.18%) and raw materials (-0.94%). The only sector that opened positively was the real estate sector with a rate of (0.61%).

Of the 30 companies listed on Dow Jones, only Merck & Co (1.09%), International Business Machines (0.74%), Apple (0.33%) and Cisco (1.87%) advanced this morning, while among the hardest hit was Goldman Sachs ( -3.37%) American Express (-3.17%) JPMorgan (-2.73%) and Visa (-2.72%).

In other markets, Texas oil fell to $71.12 a barrel, gold rose to $1808.10 an ounce, Treasury yields fell to 1.382%, and the dollar increased against the euro, with a change of 1193. EFE

jfu / fpa

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