NEW YORK: Wall Street ended sharply lower yesterday, with financial stocks bearing much of the damage for a second straight day as the Russia-Ukraine crisis deepened and stirred anxiety among investors.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.76% to end at 33,294.95 points, while the S&P 500 lost 1.55% to 4,306.24. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.59% to 13,532.46.
Trading was busy. Volume on US exchanges was 14.9 billion shares, compared with a 12.3 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.
The session was the worst since the Russian invasion after major US indices rose both Thursday and Friday and suffered only modest declines on Monday.
The CBOE volatility index, also known as Wall Street's fear gauge, rose to its highest since Feb 24.
The S&P 500 has declined about 10% in 2022, and the Nasdaq has lost about 13%.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.55-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.80-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sector indices fell, led by financials, down 3.7%.
Wells Fargo tumbled 5.8% and the broader banks index declined 4.8% as US 10-year Treasury yields slumped to five-week lows amid a flight to safe-haven debt.
Among the 11 industrial sectors, energy was the lone one to rise. The energy index rose about 1%.
Chevron Corp jumped 4% to close at its highest level ever after the company raised its share buyback programme and forecast for operating cash-flow through 2026, and as oil prices surged.
“Investors are swimming in a soup of fear, and they don’t know how to incorporate geopolitical news into their pricing,” said Mike Zigmont, head of research and trading at Harvest Volatility Management in New York. “We’re dealing with a pure emotional investor response.”
On a positive note, data showed US manufacturing activity picked up more than expected in February as Covid-19 infections subsided, while construction spending surged in January.
“Given the fact that the US economy is accelerating, the uncertainty will be relatively short lived and it wouldn’t be a surprise if the market found its footing sometime over the next couple of weeks when clarity is restored,” said Jeff Schulze, investment strategist at ClearBridge Investments. – Reuters, AFP