US Market extends losses to third day

The US stocks fell sharply in the final hour of trade on Thursday, 20 January 2022, erasing early gains and dragging the Dow, the S&P500 index and the Nasdaq firmly in negative territory for the third straight session.

The early gains on Wall Street came as investors scooped up bargains following the two-day slide, but by the end of the day, selloff resumed as rising bond yields and interest rate concerns dragging the markets into the red.

At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index declined 313.26 points, or 0.89%, to 34,715.39. The S&P500 index dropped 50.03 points, or 1.1%, to 4,482.73. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index fell 186.23 points, or 1.3%, to 14,154.02.

Total shares volume turnover on U.S. exchanges stood at 10.07 billion shares, up from yesterday's 9.46 billion shares. Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE exchange by 854 to 2505 and 168 closed unchanged. In the NASDAQ, 1379 issues advanced, 3378 issues declined, and 218 issues unchanged.

Total 10 of 11 major S&P 500 sector indexes declined, with bottom performing issues were consumer discretionary (down 1.94%), materials (down 1.43%), information technology (down 1.33%), and industrials (down 1.24%), while top performing issues included utilities (up 0.14%).

ECONOMIC NEWS: Initial claims for state unemployment benefits surged 55,000 to a seasonally adjusted 286,000 for the week ended Jan. 15, the highest level since mid-October, according to the Labor Department report released on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the headline Manufacturing Activity Index of the Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey rose to 23.2 in January from 20.0 in December, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia released on Thursday. The survey polls manufacturing firms in the Third Federal Reserve District--which covers eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware--about the direction of change in overall business activity at their plants. Any reading above zero indicates expansion.

Furthermore, US existing-home sales fell 4.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.18 million in December, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. It was the lowest in 4 months. Compared to a year ago, sales were down more than 7%. Considering full 2021 however, sales increased 8.5% to 6.12 million, the highest since 2006.

ENERGY NEWS: Crude oil prices eased on Thursday, after having hit a seven-year high in the previous session on demand optimism and news of short-term supply disruptions. The Brent crude price fell by US6 cents or 0.1% to US$88.38 a barrel. The US Nymex crude price fell by US6 cents or 0.1% to US$86.90 a barrel.

Among Indian ADR, WNS Holdings dropped 1.5% to $85.91, INFOSYS sank 3.23% to $23.68, Wipro fell 1.82% to $8.09, Dr Reddys Labs fell 1.46% to $61.44, and HDFC Bank declined 0.81% to $69.58. Tata Motors fell 0.79% to $34.03 and Azure Power Global fell 1.33% to $15.55. ICICI Bank added 0.37% to $21.51.

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