US STOCKS-Wall Street falls fourth straight day as recession worries nag

Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings

19/12/2022 21:30

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      Fed hikes, recession fears in focus
    

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      L3Harris slides after $4.7 bln Aerojet buyout Indexes
down: Dow
0.49%, S&P 0.90%, Nasdaq 1.49%
    

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 (Updates after close, adds details, trading volume)
    By Sinéad Carew and Sruthi Shankar
       Dec 19 (Reuters) - Wall Street closed lower on Monday
for a fourth straight session with Nasdaq leading declines as
investors shied away from riskier bets, worried the Federal
Reserve's tightening campaign could push the U.S. economy into a
recession.
    The three major U.S. stock indexes have been under pressure
since Wednesday, when Fed Chair Jerome Powell took a hawkish
tone while the central bank raised interest rates. Powell
promised further rate increases even as data showed signs of a
weakening economy.   
    The S&P 500  .SPX , the Dow Jones industrials  .DJI  and the
Nasdaq have sold off sharply for December and are on track for  
their biggest annual declines since the 2008 financial crisis.
    While U.S. Treasury yields gained, investors ran from
stocks, eyeing prospects of safer bets as they worried about the
likelihood of a recession in 2023 according to Brian Overby,
senior markets strategist at Ally. 
        "Investors are asking why do I want to take those risks
going into 2023 with the Fed's stance still aggressive when I
can get such a good yield on the fixed income market place," he
said. 
  
        The lack of big earnings reports or economic data on
Monday likely sharpened investors' focus on economic fears and
interest rates, according to Melissa Brown, Global Head of
Applied Research at Qontigo in New York.  
        "It's a knife edge between whether we're going to teeter
into a recession or have a soft landing. Is the Fed acting
appropriately?" said Brown who also noted that moves may be
exaggerated as many investors take vacation around the
end-of-year holidays.
    The Dow Jones Industrial Average  .DJI  fell 162.92 points,
or 0.49%, to 32,757.54, the S&P 500  .SPX  lost 34.7 points, or
0.90%, to 3,817.66 and the Nasdaq Composite  .IXIC  dropped
159.38 points, or 1.49%, to 10,546.03.
    The biggest decliners among S&P industry sectors were 
communications services  .SPLRCL , which fell 2.2%, consumer
discretionary  .SPLRCD , down 1.7% and technology  .SPLRCT ,
which lost 1.4%. Energy  .SPNY  outperformed, closing up 0.13%
as the sole industry out of 11 to manage a gain.       
        Market heavyweights such as Apple Inc  AAPL.O ,
Microsoft Corp  MSFT.O  and Amazon.com Inc  AMZN.O  created some
of the biggest drags on the market.  
  
    Trading in Tesla Inc  TSLA.O  was volatile with the electric
carmaker closing down 0.24% after falling as much as 2.8% during
the session. This was after a Twitter poll that showed a
majority of respondents want Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk to
step down as CEO of the social media platform.
    Meta Platforms  META.O  shares finished down 4.1% after the
European Commission said it could impose a fine of up to 10% of
the tech conglomerate's annual global turnover if evidence
showed an infringement of the EU's antitrust laws.
    L3Harris Technologies Inc  LHX.N  lost 3.6% after the U.S.
defense contractor said it would buy hypersonic engine
manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc  AJRD.N  for $4.7
billion. Aerojet added 1.3%.
    Shares of casino operators Melco Resorts & Entertainment
 MLCO.O  tumbled just under 8% and Wynn Resorts  WYNN.O  lost
5.2% while Las Vegas Sands Corp  LVS.N  fell 2.3% after Macau
said on Friday that six casino firms will invest around $15
billion as part of new 10-year contracts they signed to operate
in the world's biggest gambling hub.
    Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
2.80-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.63-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
        The S&P 500 posted 5 new 52-week highs and 20 new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded 66 new highs and 456 new lows.
  
        On U.S. exchanges 11.07 billion shares changed hands,
compared with the 11.59 billion average for the last 20 trading
days.
  
 (Reporting by Sinéad Carew, Sruthi Shankar, Shubham  Batra,
Johann M Cherian and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by
Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Maju Samuel and David Gregorio)
 ((sinead.carew@thomsonreuters.com))