US Stocks pull back from record on Powell, earnings news

The US stocks mostly moved down on Friday, 22 October 2021, weighing the S&P500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq indexes into negative terrain, while the Dow Jones index managed to close at new record closing high.

Stocks came under pressure as investors opted to book recent profit after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the US central bank was on track to begin reducing its purchases of assets. Also, weighing the Wall Street down was mixed earnings news from several big-name companies.

At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index rose 73.94 points, or 0.21%, to 35,677.02. The S&P500 index fell 4.88 points, or 0.11%, to 4,544.90. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 125.50 points, or 0.82%, to 15,090.20.

Total volume turnover on U.S. exchanges stood at 9.93 billion shares. In the NYSE exchange, 1673 issues advanced, 1615 issues declined, and 142 issues closed unchanged. In the NASDAQ, 1955 issues advanced, 2555 issues declined, and 199 issues unchanged.

Total 4 of 11 sectors ended down along with the S&P500 index, with communication services (down 2.28%) was worst performing sector, followed by consumer discretionary (down 0.66%) and information technology (down 0.33%) sectors, while financials (up 1.33%) was best performing sector, followed by energy (up 0.93%), consumer staples (up 0.76%), and real estate (up 0.66%) sectors.

Shares of Intel declined after the semiconductor giant posted weaker than expected sales and warned of lower profit margins over the next few years.

Shares of Snap also saw substantial weakness after reporting mixed third quarter results and warning changes to Apple's iOS privacy rules will lead to slower growth.

Shares of American Express closed higher after the financial services giant reported better than expected third quarter results.

CURRENCY NEWS: The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six currencies, fell 0.2% as appetite for riskier assets increased.

COMMODITY NEWS: Brent crude, the oil benchmark, settled up 1.1 per cent to $85.53 a barrel, remaining close to its highest level in three years.

Among Indian ADR, Wipro fell 1.1% to $9.52, INFOSYS fell 1.7% to $23.01, Dr Reddys Labs dropped 0.37% to $61.32, Vedanta fell 6.72% to $16.93, ICICI Bank sank 0.95% to $19.90, HDFC Bank shed 0.2% to $77.54, and Tata Motors fell 3.9% to $32.27. WNS Holdings rose 0.34% to $84.58.

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