US Market falls after Biden picks Powell to lead the Fed

The US stocks moved mostly lower on Monday, 22 November 2021, with the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 settling firmly into negative territory, while the Dow managed to closed marginally higher.

The weak performance of Wall Street stocks came as the announcement of a second term for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and resurgence of COVID-19 cases in Europe prompted fresh lockdowns and painted a bleak picture of post-coronavirus recovery for the global economy.

At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index rose 17.27 points, or 0.05%, to 35,619.25. The S&P500 index fell 15.02 points, or 0.32%, to 4,682.94. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index lost 202.68 points, or 1.26%, to 15,854.76.

Total volume turnover on U.S. exchanges stood at 10.46 billion shares. Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE exchange by 1842 to 1543 and 143 closed unchanged. In the NASDAQ, 1709 issues advanced, 3038 issues declined, and 216 issues unchanged.

Total 5 of 11 S&P500 sectors ended down, with communication services (down 1.24%) was bottom performing issue followed by information technology (down 1.14%), consumer discretionary (down 0.53%), and healthcare (down 0.47%) issues, while energy (up 1.8%) was top performing sector, followed by financials (up 1.43%), consumer staples (up 0.77%), and utilities (up 0.6%) sectors.

President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Jerome Powell for a second term as Federal Reserve Chair. The White House also revealed that Biden intends to nominate current Fed Governor Lael Brainard as Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve System.

Powell's renomination came amid a renewed sense of urgency over soaring inflation in the US among America's top policymakers and politicians. The Fed chair said on Monday that the central bank would use its tools to prevent higher inflation from becoming entrenched.

Speaking before Powell, Biden said the pace of the post-pandemic economic recovery in the US meant that it was possible to attack inflation from a position of strength, not weakness.

Brainard, who was nominated as vice-chair of the Fed alongside Powell on Monday, also opened her remarks by saying that getting inflation down at a time when people are focused on their jobs and how far their pay cheques will go would be central to her role if she is confirmed by the Senate.

ECONOMIC NEWS: US Existing Home Sales Continue To Climb In October- US existing home sales climbed 0.8% to an annual rate of 6.34 million in October after spiking by 7.0% to a rate of 6.29 million in September, according to a report released by the National Association of Realtors on Monday. Despite the monthly advance, the annual rate of existing home sales in October is down by 5.8% from 6.73 million in the same month a year ago.

Among Indian ADR, WNS Holdings fell 0.9% to $88.84, HDFC Bank dropped 4.95% to $68.42, ICICI Bank fell 5.72% to $19.30, Wipro declined 3% to $8.72, INFOSYS sank 3.48% to $22.77, Dr Reddys Labs fell 2.57% to $60.72, and Tata Motors fell 3.62% to $32.24. Azure Power Global added 0.67% to $22.66.

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