US Shares end lower; Tech leads losses

The US shares were mostly lower on Friday, 08 April 2022, weighing the Nasdaq Composite and S&P500 indexes lower, while the Dow managed to finish above the boundary line.

The weak finish of Wall Street was due to investor concerns about the economic costs of war in Ukraine and the Fed's hawkish message on quantitative tightening. The release of the minutes of the Fed's March meeting showed "many" policymakers plan to reduce their bond holdings and were prepared to raise rates in 50-basis-point increments in coming months.

At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index advanced 137.55 points, or 0.4%, to 34,721.12. The S&P500 index fell 11.93 points, or 0.27%, to 4,488.28. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index sank 186.30 points, or 1.34%, to 13,711. For the week, the tech-heavy Nasdaq plunged by 3.9%, the S&P 500 slumped by 1.3% and the Dow dipped by 0.3%.

Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE exchange by 1826 to 1476 and 134 closed unchanged. In the NASDAQ, 1783 issues advanced, 1946 issues declined, and 264 issues unchanged.

Total 6 of 11 major S&P 500 sector indexes advanced, with top performing sector were financials (up 1%), healthcare (up 0.58%), and materials (up 0.55%), while bottom performing issues included information technology (down 1.43%), consumer discretionary (down 0.97%), and communication services (down 0.74%).

Tech stocks led the day's losses as investors dumped the riskier shares in anticipation of higher interest rates limiting the group's future profit growth. Chipmakers like Nvidia and Micron, which have struggled amid supply chain shortages and concerns of a looming recession, dipped 4.5% and 1.4%, respectively, while shares of Tesla, Alphabet, and Apple slid 3%, 1.9%, and 1.2% lower.

ECONOMIC NEWS: US Wholesale Inventories Spike By 2.5% In February- US wholesale inventories spiked by 2.5% in February after jumping by an upwardly revised 1.2% in January, a report released by the Commerce Department on Friday showed. Inventories of durable goods jumped by 1.9%, while inventories of non-durable goods soared by 3.3%. The report also showed wholesale sales surged by 1.7% in February after skyrocketing by 5% in January.

Among Indian ADR, Wipro added 0.4% to $7.58, HDFC Bank added 0.75% to $63.12 Tata Motors added 3.18% to $30.15. WNS Holdings added 0.49% to $86.99, Dr Reddy's Labs added 2.34% to $58.13, and ICICI Bank added 2% to $19.88. INFOSYS fell 0.5% to $23.70 and, Azure Power Global dropped 2.25% to $16.06.

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