US Stocks tumble on lingering geopolitical woes, oil spike

The US share market finished session lower on Wednesday, 23 March 2022, as risk aversion selloff resumed amid concerns over geopolitical tensions surrounding the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and spike in crude oil prices to over $121 a barrel.

At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index tumbled by 448.96 points, or 1.29%, to 34,358.50. The S&P500 index sank by 55.37 points, or 1.23%, to 4,456.24. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index was down by 186.21 points, or 1.32%, to 13,922.60.

Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE exchange by 2139 to 1172 and 137 closed unchanged. In the NASDAQ, 1672 issues advanced, 3035 issues declined, and 248 issues unchanged.

Total 9 of 11 major S&P 500 sector indexes declined, with bottom performing sector were financials (down 1.84%), healthcare (down 1.77%), information technology (down 1.5%), consumer discretionary (down 1.2%), and communication services (down 1.2%).

Western leaders began gathering in Brussels to plan more measures to pressure Russia to halt its conflict in Ukraine. U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to impose further sanctions on Russia during his trip to Europe this week.

Responding to Western sanctions that have hit Russia's economy hard, President Vladimir Putin said Moscow will seek payment in roubles for natural gas sales from "unfriendly" countries.

Crude oil prices rose in volatile trading on Wednesday, supported by disruption of Russian and Kazakh crude exports. Also fuelling spike in crude oil prices was reports from the American Petroleum Institute showed U.S. crude oil inventories fell by 4.3 million barrels in the week ended 18 March 2022. A separate report from the Energy Information Administration showed crude oil inventories decreased by 2.5 million barrels last week. U.S. crude recently rose 4.71% to $114.42 per barrel and Brent was at $121.37, up 5.1% on the day.

Gold prices also gained on Wednesday as investors looked to shield against soaring inflation and uncertainty caused by events in Ukraine. Spot gold added 1.3% to $1,946.44 an ounce.

Among individual shares, Adobe Inc's shares tumbled after the Photoshop maker forecasted downbeat second-quarter revenue and profit and sees an impact on fiscal 2022 revenue due to the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

GameStop Corp shares jumped 14.5% after Chairman Ryan Cohen's investment company bought 100,000 shares of the videogame retailer.

Among Indian ADR, HDFC Bank declined 3.3% to $60.39, ICICI Bank fell 4.5% to $18.11, Wipro declined 1.88% to $7.85, WNS Holdings declined 3.48% to $83.73, Tata Motors sank 1.61% to $28.15, and INFOSYS fell 1.9% to $24.31. Azure Power Global rose 4.2% to $19.10 and Dr Reddy's Labs added 0.26% to $53.22.

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