Equities New York: Directionless at the start of the week

NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The US stock markets presented themselves with an inconsistent trend at the beginning of the new week in trading. While the majority of standard stocks on Wall Street recorded moderate losses, the technology exchange Nasdaq experienced a gentle recovery.

The leading index Dow Jones Industrial (Dow Jones 30 Industrial) was last listed on Monday 0.58 percent lower at 33,614.28 points after falling by around 2.7 percent on Friday. The market-wide S&P 500 lost 0.78 percent on Monday to 4238.54 points. The tech-heavy NASDAQ 100 rose 0.11 percent to 13,371.48 points.

Since the end of the week, increased interest rate fears have weighed on investor sentiment. In particular, statements by US Federal Reserve President Jerome Powell about a major interest rate hike at the next Fed meeting in early May caused the previously good market mood to tip over.

In addition, there was concern on Monday about the effects of the Chinese corona policy on the global economy. After the discovery of a few dozen infections in Beijing, all 3.5 million residents of the largest district, Chaoyang, have to be tested in three rounds every two days. The fear of strict curfews in the Chinese capital caused hamster purchases and empty supermarket shelves.

From an industry perspective, oil stocks came under the most selling pressure after oil prices fell significantly. Accordingly, the stocks of Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips were among the weakest stocks with losses of between 3.8 and 6.0 percent. Concerns about weaker demand due to the strict corona measures in China are increasingly dominating the crude market. The economic metropolis of Shanghai is already entering the fourth week of a tough lockdown.

Among the individual values, the shares of Coca-Cola were the focus of investors. In the first quarter, the soft drinks manufacturer generated significantly more revenue than analysts had expected. Operating margin improved 2.3 percentage points to 32.5 percent. The shares recently stagnated at the level of last Friday.

Twitter shares gained 5.2 percent. According to US media reports, the Internet communication platform is more receptive to the takeover bid by tech billionaire Elon Musk after initial resistance. The “Wall Street Journal” wrote this Monday that both sides are in serious negotiations and could come to an agreement this week. According to the Bloomberg news agency, an agreement could even be reached this Monday. Tesla shares fell 0.9 percent./edh/he

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