Wall Street plunges; Dow Jones and S&P 500, with their worst numbers in almost 2 years

United States.– Stock market indexes in the United States and Mexico closed Thursday with significant losses, dragged down by the performance of Walmart and Target, as their financial reports ‘fueled’ fears about the impact of the increase in inflation in recent months.The Dow Jones and the S&P 500 fell 3.57 and 4.04 percent, respectively, which meant their largest negative variation since June 2020.On the other hand, the Nasdaq dropped 4.73 percent to 11,418.16 points, its worst setback since last May 5.

Markets were unable to build on yesterday’s solid gains, with another ‘crossover shot’ in the retail/consumer discretionary sector hurting confidence and causing the major averages to fall between 3 percent and 6 percent in broad market sales. Concern arose as Target followed Walmart yesterday with a large earnings miss, margin compression and cautious outlook citing rising costs and changes in consumer spending patterns,” said analysts at Investrade.

They added that the selling pressure at both companies (each of which experienced their worst one-day declines since the ‘Black Monday’ collapse), had a ripple effect on the market with discount/warehouse, mall, freight and trucker declines on fears of fewer deliveries, as well as record gasoline prices today and restaurants on rising inflationary wages and food costs.

Shares of self-service companies such as Walmart and Target had declines of 6.8 and 24.9 percent, respectively.

In Mexico, the Prices and Quotations Index fell 2.08 percent to 50,394.03 points, while the FTSE BIVA ended at 1,41.14 units with a decrease of 2.06 percent.

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For both indexes it was their biggest loss since April 29.

“Stocks finished notably lower on Wednesday, with the Dow falling more than 1,100 points, as markets more than gave up Tuesday’s rally. While the force behind market (inflation) anxiety is not new, investor concerns were heightened by earnings announcements from retail giants Target and Walmart, both of which reported disappointing results, citing significant cost challenges,” mentioned analysts at Edward Jones.

On the other hand, bitcoin is trading at a price of 29 thousand 1.77 dollars, down 3.61 percent from Tuesday.

Oil in negative trend

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) fell 3.69 percent to sell at 109.06 dollars per barrel, and Brent fell 2.85 percent to settle at a price of 109.18 dollars per barrel.

There are signs of a reopening in China, and a new concern in Libya, where Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibé had to flee Tripoli, under pressure from other factions in a state of war. This could affect the supply of oil from this country. Meanwhile, the European Union announced that it will invest 300 billion euros over the next 8 years to end its dependence on Russian crude oil”, commented Ben Laidler, global strategist at eToro.

The price of gold is positioned at 1,816.65 dollars per ounce with a marginal increase of 0.08 percent, while silver traded at a price of 21.405 dollars per ounce, a decrease of 1.05 percent.

Bonds down

In the United States, the 10-year Treasury note rate fell 10.2 basis points to 2.88 percent. In Mexico, the 10-year M-bond rate fell 2.5 basis points to 8.87 percent.

With information from El Financiero.