NEW YORK: US stocks lost more ground yesterday after President Joe Biden imposed a ban on imports of Russian petroleum, and more major firms announced they were shutting operations in Russia.
Britain also announced it was phasing out energy purchases from Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, while oil giants Shell and BP, both based in Britain, said they would stop buying Russian oil and natural gas immediately.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6% to finish the session at 32,632.64, the lowest in nearly a year. The broad-based S&P 500 dropped 0.7% to end at 4,170.7, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite lost 0.3% to 12,795.55.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.02-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.09-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
About 19 billion shares changed hands in US exchanges, the most in over a year, compared with the 13.4 billion daily average over the last 20 sessions.
It was a choppy day of trading, and Gregori Volokhine of Meeschaert Financial Services noted that shares jumped after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said he is no longer pressing for Nato membership.
But “the market is so nervous that at the slightest positive or negative headline, it reacts to avoid being too exposed,” he told AFP. “Everyone tries to limit the risks.”
“I think it is just investors trying to probe whether it is worth buying the dips and we had a real big one yesterday,” said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana. “Anytime that the buying seems to get a little out of hand on the upside there seems to be willing sellers coming in.”
“To me, it’s a trader’s market and people looking for very short-term momentum shifts to trade,“ Carlson said. – Reuters, AFP