US Market falls on aggressive Fed

The US share market finished session down on Tuesday, 05 April 2022, on fears of aggressive Fed after hawkish comments from Federal Reserve officials who pushed for a quick reduction in the central bank's bloated balance sheet, with one of them expressing openness to hefty rate increases of half a percentage point.

At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index fell 280.70 points, or 0.8%, to 34,641.18. The S&P500 index dropped 57.52 points, or 1.26%, to 4,525.12. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index was down 328.39 points, or 2.26%, to 14,204.17.

Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE exchange by 648 to 2716 and 129 closed unchanged. In the NASDAQ, 1207 issues advanced, 3552 issues declined, and 267 issues unchanged.

Total 6 of 11 major S&P 500 sector indexes declined, with bottom performing sector were consumer discretionary (down 2.35%), information technology (down 2.19%), industrials (down 1.39%), and communication services (down 1.39%), while top performing issue included utilities (up 0.66%).

The weakness emerged on Wall Street on renewed concerns about the outlook for monetary policy following comments from Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard. At a conference on Tuesday, Fed Governor Lael Brainard, usually one of the Fed's more dovish policymakers, said on Tuesday that she expects methodical interest rate increases and rapid reductions to the Fed's nearly $9 trillion balance sheet to bring U.S. monetary policy to a "more neutral position" later this year, with further tightening to follow as needed.

Kansas City Fed President Esther George, a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, also in remarks on Tuesday supported a rapid run-off of the Fed balance sheet, and said as well that "50 basis-points is going to be an option that we'll have to consider."

In company news, shares of Twitter Inc gained 2%, adding to their prior-day surge, as the social media company said it will offer Tesla CEO and entrepreneur Elon Musk a seat on its board of directors.

Carnival Corp shares rose 2.4% after the cruise operator reported its highest booking week in its history.

Shares of Spirit Airlines soared 22.5% after reports that JetBlue Airways has made an offer to buy Spirit.

ECONOMIC NEWS: US Services Index Ascends to 58.3 in March- US services PMI rose to 58.3 in March from 56.5 in February, with a reading above 50 indicating growth in the sector, the Institute for Supply Management reported on Tuesday. The slightly bigger than expected increase by the services PMI follows three consecutive monthly decreases after the index reached a record high in November. The rebound by the headline index came as the new orders index jumped to 60.1 in March from 56.1 in February. The business activity index also crept up to 55.5 from 55.1. The report showed the employment index also rebounded to 54.0 in March from 48.5 in February, indicating job growth in the service sector following a contraction in the previous month. The inventories index also inched up to 51.7 in March from 50.8 in February, while the supplier deliveries index fell to 63.4 from 66.2.

Among Indian ADR, INFOSYS fell 1.46% to $24.38, Wipro sank 0.05% to $7.86, Tata Motors fell 0.61% to $29.51, ICICI Bank fell 1.57% to $19.41, and HDFC Bank fell 4.32% to $64.75. WNS Holdings sank 1.34% to $86.90 and Azure Power Global dropped 4.32% to $16.62. Dr Reddy's Labs added 0.39% to $56.67.

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