Wall St starts the year with a dip; Apple, Tesla shares drag
Reuters
Published Jan 03, 2023 06:33AM ET
Updated Jan 03, 2023 07:22PM ET
By Sinéad Carew and Amruta Khandekar
(Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes closed lower on the first trading day of 2023 with the biggest drags from Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Apple, while investors worried about the Federal Reserve's interest-rate hiking path as they awaited minutes from its December meeting.
Shares in electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc closed down 12% after hitting their lowest level since August 2020 and put pressure on the consumer discretionary sector following a miss on Wall Street estimates for fourth-quarter deliveries.
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares sank 3.7%, with the iPhone maker hitting its lowest level since June 2021, after a report from Nikkei Asia pointed to weaker demand. In addition, an analyst downgraded their rating of the stock due to production cuts in COVID-19-hit China.
The energy sector, which logged stellar gains in 2022, closed down 3.6% in the year's first trading day as oil prices fell on bleak business activity data from China and concerns about the global economic outlook. [O/R].
The main U.S. stock indexes in 2022 showed their steepest annual losses since 2008 following the Fed's fastest pace of rate hikes since the 1980s to stamp out decades-high inflation.
"2022 was a terrible year for equity markets. Some of the reasons for that haven't dissipated because we turned the calendar," said Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles. "There's still elevated anxiety, uncertainty about the Fed and inflation. Until there's clarity on that, it's going to be tough to make any upside headway in equity markets."
Given Apple and Tesla's clout in the market, James also cited specific concerns about them for broader S&P weakness Tuesday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 10.88 points, or 0.03%, to 33,136.37; the S&P 500 lost 15.36 points, or 0.40%, to 3,824.14; and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 79.50 points, or 0.76%, to 10,386.99.
The S&P 500 had shed 19.4% in 2022, marking a roughly $8 trillion decline in market capitalization, while the Nasdaq fell 33.1%, dragged down by growth stocks.
Among the S&P 500's 11 major sectors, behind energy, technology was the second biggest decliner, losing 1%, with Apple hastening the decline as it ended the day with a market valuation below $2 trillion for the first time since March 2021.
Tesla's biggest daily percentage drop since September 2020 helped make the consumer discretionary index the S&P's third weakest sector on the day with a 0.6% drop.
The benchmark's biggest gainer on the day was communications services, with Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) leading the advancers there with a gain of 3.7%.
Investors on Wednesday will closely monitor the minutes of the Fed's December policy meeting, when the central bank raised interest rates by 50 basis points after four straight 75 basis points hikes and signaled rates could stay higher for longer.
Get The News You Want
Other economic data due this week includes the ISM manufacturing report, also on Wednesday, and December's jobs report on Friday.
Weakness in the labor market could give the Fed a reason to ease its monetary policy tightening, but the data so far has shown that market remains tight despite rate hikes.
Money market participants see a 68% chance the Fed will raise the benchmark rate by 25 basis points to 4.50% to 4.75% in February, with the rates peaking at 4.98% by June..
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.42-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.20-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted one new 52-week high and five new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 92 new highs and 58 new lows.
On U.S. exchanges 10.618 billion shares changed hands, marking an uptick from the previous week's lower volume due to the holiday season. It compared with the 10.799 billion-share average for the last 20 trading days.
Written By: Reuters
Trading in financial instruments and/or cryptocurrencies involves high risks including the risk of losing some, or all, of your investment amount, and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices of cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and may be affected by external factors such as financial, regulatory or political events. Trading on margin increases the financial risks.
Before deciding to trade in financial instrument or cryptocurrencies you should be fully informed of the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite, and seek professional advice where needed.
Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. The data and prices on the website are not necessarily provided by any market or exchange, but may be provided by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual price at any given market, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Fusion Media and any provider of the data contained in this website will not accept liability for any loss or damage as a result of your trading, or your reliance on the information contained within this website.
It is prohibited to use, store, reproduce, display, modify, transmit or distribute the data contained in this website without the explicit prior written permission of Fusion Media and/or the data provider. All intellectual property rights are reserved by the providers and/or the exchange providing the data contained in this website.
Fusion Media may be compensated by the advertisers that appear on the website, based on your interaction with the advertisements or advertisers.