US Stocks end softer ahead of Fed meeting minutes

The US stock market failed to hold gains and ended on a negative note on Monday, 07 February 2022, due to renewed declines in big tech names and on caution ahead of the minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy meeting, for directional clues.

Investors are grappling with the prospect of the steepest monetary tightening cycle since the 1990s, with markets pricing in more than five quarter-point Federal Reserve interest-rate hikes in 2022 following a strong U.S. jobs report. The U.S. inflation report this week could lead to more market volatility.

At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index rose marginal 1.39 points, or 0.00%, to 35,091.13. The S&P500 index was down 16.66 points, or 0.37%, to 4,483.87. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index sank 82.34 points, or 0.58%, to 14,015.67.

Advancing stocks outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE exchange by 1801 to 1567 and 159 closed unchanged. In the NASDAQ, 2711 issues advanced, 2018 issues declined, and 255 issues unchanged.

Total 7 of 11 major S&P 500 sector indexes declined, with bottom performing issues were communication services (down 2.22%), information technology (down 0.66%), and materials (down 0.43%), while top performing issues included energy (up 1.3%) and financials (up 0.33%).

Among individual stocks, Meta Platforms declined on reports that a company has threatened to remove the social media platform from the European Union if it is unable to recollect data from users per GDPR data rules.

Shares of airliners Frontier and Spirit Airlines soared higher after the groups unveiled plans to merge into the fifth-largest US airline through a cash-and-stock deal worth $2.9 billion.

Shares of Peloton Interactive Inc. climbed up on reports both Amazon and Nike are among the companies looking to acquire the exercise brand.

Among Indian ADR, Tata Motors fell 0.91% to $32.80, INFOSYS sank 1.83% to $22.47, Wipro fell 2.11% to $7.44, Dr Reddys Labs sank 0.42% to $57.52, HDFC Bank declined 2.16% to $67.38, and ICICI Bank shed 1.72% to $21.18. Azure Power Global rose 2.36% to $13.86 and WNS Holdings added 0.87% to $86.05.

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