Market Considerations and Analytics
Key Notes
Wall Street’s major indexes fell on Friday as concerns that the Federal Reserve would continue its hawkish interest rate increases longer were stoked by a back to at least in monthly producer prices.
According to the Labor Department’s report, producer prices increased 7.4% on a yearly basis last month, exceeding economists’ predictions of a 7.2% increase. Nevertheless, the increase was less than the 8% in October.
Core producer prices, which do not include volatile food and energy prices, increased by 6.2% versus forecasts calling for a 5.9% increase.
Bets that the Fed will increase its policy rate by 50 basis points to 4.25%–4.50% next week, as predicted, remained largely unaffected by the report’s indication that the inflationary trend had eased.
Data on consumer prices for November, which are coming Tuesday, will offer new insights into the central bank’s efforts to tighten up the money supply.
Another set of statistics revealed that the preliminary assessment of consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan increased from 56.8 in November to 59.1 in December, helping the indexes recover from their low points.
Fears of a future recession owing to prolonged U.S. raising rates have put pressure on Wall Street’s main indexes in December after two straight months of advances.
After statistics showing initial unemployment claims slightly increased last week, signaling the job market was weakening, U.S. markets ended a recent series of losses on Thursday.
At 33,695.33, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 86.15 points, or 0.26%; at 3,957.53 it was off 5.98 points, or 0.15%; and at 11,065.66 it was down 16.35 pts.
Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Inc., Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) Corp., Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Inc., and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) were among the mega-cap technology and growth stocks that saw mixed outcomes.
On the NYSE and the Nasdaq, sliding issues outnumbered advancing issues by a ratio of 1.13 to 1 and 1.18 to 1, respectively.
The Nasdaq posted 24 new highs and 96 new depths, compared to the S&P index’s 5 new 52-week tops and one low point.
