US markets settle in red on Friday

19 Feb 2022 Evaluate

The US markets extended their previous session losses and ended sharply lower on Friday with the Dow ending the session at its lowest closing level since early December. The sustained weakness on Wall Street came amid lingering geopolitical concerns as the Ukrainian government and Russian state-controlled media continued to exchanged accusations of cease-fire violations in the eastern part of the country. Reports that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken have agreed to meet in Europe next week had eased concerns about an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, but traders remain wary. Traders may have been reluctant to hold significant positions going into the long weekend due to the Presidents Day holiday on Monday. Uncertainty about the outlook for monetary policy also continued to weigh on the markets ahead of an anticipated interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve next month.

On the economic data front, the National Association of Realtors released a report unexpectedly showing a sharp increase in existing home sales in the month of January. NAR said existing home sales spiked 6.7 percent to an annual rate of 6.50 million in January after tumbling 3.8 percent to a revised rate of 6.09 million in December. The substantial rebound surprised market participants, who had expected existing home sales to slump by 1.3 percent to a rate of 6.10 million from the 6.18 million originally reported for the previous month. With the unexpected jump, existing home sales reached their highest annual rate since hitting 6.65 million in January of 2021. Meanwhile, a separate report released by the Conference Board showed an unexpected pullback by its reading on leading U.S. economic indicators. The Conference Board said its leading economic index fell by 0.3 percent in January after climbing by a downwardly revised 0.7 percent in December. The dip came as a surprise to street, who had expected the index to rise by 0.3 percent compared to the 0.8 percent increase originally reported for the previous month.

Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 232.85 points or 0.68 percent to 34,079.18, Nasdaq lost 168.65 points or 1.23 to 13,548.07 and S&P 500 was down by 31.39 points or 0.72 percent to 4,348.87.

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