Wall Street down, after the rise it reported on the eve and which saw the Nasdaq Composite close 1.63% higher, after having slipped at the beginning of the session to -1.07%. The S&P 500 is also recovering, up by 0.57%, after the new low of 2022 tested in the previous hours. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 84 points (+ 0.24%), after slipping into intraday lows of more than 400 points.
At 16.00 Italian time, the Dow Jones lost about 60 points (-0.18%), to 33.001 points; the S&P 500 also fell 0.18% to 4,147 points and the Nasdaq lost 0.55% to 12,464 points.
The protagonist remains the wait for the announcement of the FOMC, the monetary policy arm of the Fed, expected tomorrow at around 20 Italian time. The consensus of the analysts is in agreement on a monetary tightening of 50 basis points, after the first hike of 16 March, which brought US rates into the new range between 0.25% and 0.50%.
The anxiety about the risk that Jerome Powell’s Fed, in its fight against inflation, will end up raising rates too much, is all engraved in the trend of rates on 10-year US Treasuries, which yesterday passed the 3% threshold, until to 3.1%, flying to the new record since December 2018. Today, however, the ten-year rates are turning around, albeit slightly, around 2.932%.
In addition to the fear of a too hawkish Fed, other factors, such as the war in Ukraine and concerns about the effects that the lockdowns imposed in China to curb Covid contagions will have on the economy of the country.
“Markets continue to be held hostage by China’s response to Covid-19 and geopolitics, factors that are clouding what is still a very resilient fundamentals picture,” JPMorgan strategist Mislav Matejka wrote in a statement.
The restrictive maneuvers of central banks are spreading all over the world: today it was the turn of the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Australian central bank, which raised rates for the first time since 2010, with a squeeze of 25 basis points, to 0, 35%.
Philip Lowe, Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, commented on the first rate hike in more than a decade, pointing out that this is the right time to start withdrawing some “extraordinary monetary measures” that had been put in place to help the Australian economy during the period of the Covid pandemic. “The economy has shown to be resilient, and inflation has accelerated the pace faster, climbing to a higher level than expected,” said Lowe, according to the official statement. evidence that wage growth is strengthening. Given all this, and the low level of interest rates, it is appropriate to start the process of normalizing monetary conditions. “
Also keep an eye on Wall Street and Alibaba, which in Hong Kong collapsed to over -9% and then reduced losses in the end to -1.37%.
The thud was triggered by the announcement by state television CCTV, which reported the news that the Chinese national authorities have launched an investigation on an individual with the surname Ma. The markets immediately feared that the investigation concerned the founder. by e-commerce giant Jack Ma.