By
Bhushan Akolkar
April 17th, 2024
After last week’s bloodbath, US indices bounce back in early market trade on Tuesday. All eyes will be on the Fed meeting the U.S. Congress ahead of this week.
After a brutal crash last week, Dow Jones futures are up by 400 points in early morning trade today, June 21. This could be a sign of relief for investors after immense selling pressure over the last few weeks.
Similar to Dow Jones, the S&P 500 futures also jumped 1.58% while the Nasdaq 100 futures jumped 1.71% today. On Monday, the US market remained closed on account of Juneteenth.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) has corrected in 10 out of the last 11 weeks. Wall Street is under a major fear that the US Federal Reserve will continue to hike rates to control the four-decade high inflation. This puts the US at risk of a major economic downturn and a recession.
Last week, the S&P 500 tanked further 5.8% deeper into the bear territory. It also registered one of the biggest weekly losses since the March 2020 market crash. The blue-chip index is already down more than 23% from its record high in January 2022.
The Dow Jones corrected 4.8% last week while the Nasdaq Composite also corrected 4.8%. After a mega bull run in 2021, technology and growth stocks suffered a major hammering this year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has already corrected more than 33% from its peak. Speaking to CNBC, Nationwide’s chief of investment research, Mark Hackett said:
“The recent drop in equity markets and inflection in investor attitudes make a bottoming thesis more difficult to make. Investors are acting emotionally, but the fundamentals are beginning to follow the weakness in the technicals.”
The Federal Reserve Meeting With US Congress
Last week, the US Federal Reserve announced a 75 basis points rise in interest rates. This was the biggest increase since 1994 by the US central bank as inflation soars to a four-decade high. Ahead of this week, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell shall testify before the US Congress.
This is the first meeting of the Fed Chairman after the recent rate hike. Investors shall be monitoring some key data ahead of this week. Later today, they will watch the existing home sales to measure the strength of the economy.
As per the latest data, there’s a drop in retail spending and very low consumer confidence in the market. Also, the slowdown in the housing market is further triggering fears of recession.