NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The US stock exchanges quickly turned negative on Tuesday after a firm start. The reason was robust data from US industry and the labor market. This fueled concerns again that the US Federal Reserve could continue its tough monetary policy course with large interest rate hikes unabated on Wednesday, after there had recently been hope that the pace of increases would be less rapid.
After the unusually strong October with a price gain of almost 14 percent, the Dow Jones Industrial (Dow Jones 30 Industrial) lost 0.40 percent to 32,603.07 points just under two and a half hours before the end of the stock market. The market-wide S&P 500 fell by 0.47 percent to 3853.80 points.
In view of the rekindled fear of interest rates, the NASDAQ 100, which is predominantly stocked with technology stocks, slipped even more sharply with minus 1.01 percent to 11,290.91 points. Heavyweights such as Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet (Alphabet A (ex Google)) lost up to three percent, Amazon even five percent.
Rumors of China’s gradual exit from the zero-Covid policy initially gave the indices a boost at the start of trading and ensured a friendly start to November. Shares in technology companies rose on the stock exchanges in China and Hong Kong. In New York, this had a positive effect on depositary receipts (ADRs) from Chinese companies such as those of the internet trading groups Alibaba and JD.com (JDcom) and the search engine operator Baidu (Baiducom), which rose by more than five percent in some cases.
Uber (Uber) soared more than 13 percent. Shares of the US ride-hailing service provider benefited from stronger-than-expected quarterly sales. The company also reduced its loss. In the wake of Uber, the title of the competitor Lyft gained 4.5 percent.
Shares in pharmaceutical makers Pfizer and Eli Lilly (Eli Lilly and) headed in different directions. Despite the strong US dollar, Pfizer had raised its annual targets for the figures, which gave the shares a plus of 2.8 percent. Eli Lilly, on the other hand, cut both the sales and profit targets for the current year in view of the strength of the dollar, and the shares lost 4.5 percent.
The focus is also on the pharmaceutical and consumer goods group Johnson & Johnson (JohnsonJohnson) (J&J) (JohnsonJohnson) with a takeover project. The target of the desire is the heart pump manufacturer ABIOMED. The offer, excluding milestone payments, is $380 per share in cash for a total of $16.6 billion. While Abiomed jumped a good 50 percent, J&J fell by 0.6 percent./ajx/he