Nervous investors ahead of the announcement of new data on the index on Wednesday – The new rally in oil prices casts a heavy shadow on the markets, which will fuel inflationary pressures.
The Nasdaq completed its third day of losses, with technology stocks under significant pressure. This development had a wider impact on the climate on Wall Street, with the result that all indices moved downwards.
On the board, the Dow Jones closed with a small drop of 0.05% at 34,645 points, thus losing the gains it recorded earlier. On the contrary, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were early on in the “red” with the former losing 0.57% to 4,461 points and the technological index making a… dive of 1.04%, resulting in a formation of 13,773 points.
The negative star on the Nasdaq was Oracle's stock, which lost more than 13%, as investors were disappointed by the financial results it announced and especially the low guidance for the next quarter. Thus, other groups active in cloud services also moved downward, including Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet.
Alphabet in particular had the burden of starting the much-lauded trial of the lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice against Google over its monopoly on search engines, which analysts consider the most important in the industry for more than twenty years, since legal dispute between the authorities and Microsoft.
Losses of more than 2% were also recorded by the Apple stock, as the long-awaited event for the presentation of the new iPhone 15 (as well as other products such as the new Apple Watch) did not managed to calm the market's concern about the pressure that the company's sales will receive from the bans launched by the Chinese on iPhones.
Investors are also nervous ahead of the announcement of the latest data on the inflation front which will be released tomorrow, Wednesday, just days before the upcoming Federal Reserve meeting.
Yesterday the market was buoyed by a report from the WSJ which claimed there was consensus among council members to take a wait-and-see stance at next week's meeting. However, this outlook became more… blurred today due to the developments in the oil market that led to a new rally in international prices and scenarios for the return of black gold above the $100 per barrel mark. A course that will obviously also fuel inflationary pressures!
The fresh jump in prices of nearly 2%, with Brent above $92 a barrel and WTI nearing $89, came in response to a new OPEC report in which the oil cartel reaffirmed its estimates of strong levels demand both this year and next year. At the same time, he estimated that the deficit between supply and demand will fluctuate at the highest levels in more than ten years, at 3 million barrels per day, which will obviously continue to fuel the upward trajectory of prices.
The effects of the new rally in energy prices are scaring markets and governments, leaving the companies in the sector alone. It's no coincidence that despite the negative sentiment on Wall Street, energy stocks posted gains with Chevron and ExxonMobil tipped higher by more than 2%.
Speaking to CNBC, Allianz's chief financial adviser and well-known market “guru” Mohamed El Erian argued that investors are too quick to discount the end of the rising rate cycle as early as the September meeting. He also claimed that the restrictive monetary policy will be maintained for a long time and that he also disagrees with the assessment that the Fed may start cutting interest rates from the beginning of next year.
