The major indexes wiped out yesterday’s relief-rally gains and then some Thursday in a market-wide rout as Wall Street took a more sober look at the investing landscape.
For one, most of the worries hanging over stocks haven’t disappeared, including on the interest-rate front. While Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell did dismiss the idea of a 75-basis-point hike yesterday, the expectation is for at least two more 50-basis-point hikes at the next two Federal Open Market Committee meetings – a still-considerable level of monetary tightening.
“We are still not out of the woods yet, as there is still too much uncertainty over how the Federal Reserve’s actions will tame inflation without causing a recession,” says Zach Stein, chief investment officer of climate change-focused investment manager Carbon Collective.
Indeed, the yield on the 10-year Treasury, which retreated yesterday, roared back to life Thursday to eclipse 3% once more. That weighed particularly hard on rate-sensitive growth places in tech and tech-esque stocks such as mega-caps Tesla (TSLA, -8.3%), Nvidia (NVDA, -7.3%) and Apple (AAPL, -5.6%).
Speculative assets such as cryptocurrency went heavily risk-off, too; Bitcoin, for instance, plunged 8.9% to $36,287. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.)
Gene Goldman, chief investment officer of Cetera Investment Management, pointed to additional drivers for Thursday’s woes.
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“There is less optimism around the less hawkish Fed and the softish landing scenario,” he says. “We saw data this morning portraying more inflation and a weaker economy – labor costs surged in Q1, unemployment claims rose, and productivity was weaker than expected.”
Goldman also pointed to disappointing earnings reports from the e-commerce industry, which, because of high valuations to boot, were selling off particularly hard.
Shopify (SHOP), for one, plunged 14.9% after the e-commerce company reported lower-than-expected adjusted earnings and revenue in its first quarter (20 cents vs. 63 cents est.; $1.2 billion vs. $1.24 billion est.) and projected soft revenue guidance in the first half amid tough comparisons. SHOP also said it will buy San Francisco-based fulfillment startup Deliverr for $2.1 billion.
“Although e-commerce growth was below our view, SHOP is lapping pandemic figures, with comparisons to get more favorable exiting the calendar year,” says CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino (Hold). “That said, we do think consensus expectations will need to be tempered, partly reflecting lower than expected merchant additions to start the year.”
eBay (EBAY, …….
Source: https://www.kiplinger.com/investing/stocks/604649/stock-market-today-050522-stocks-worst-losses
