Wall Street in search of direction awaiting geopolitical developments

LAST UPDATE 17:25

The key indicators of the American market at the close of a stock market week, which was characterized by intense volatility due to geopolitical tension in Ukraine, are trading with small fluctuations and alternations of signs.

Characteristically, after the signs of de-escalation that temporarily “relieved” the international markets on Wednesday, the new tensions yesterday led the Dow Jones to its worst day since the end of last November with losses of more than 500 points, and the other two indices to follow closely.

Today, with the tones falling again, the three indicators have changed several times since the beginning of the session, as investors move cautiously in anticipation of new developments.

Thus, the Dow Jones industrial average is now marginally up 0.05% and is moving at 34,328 points, the technologically weighted Nasdaq is down 0.4% at 13,659 points, while the enlarged S&P 500 is around the unchanged at 4,379 points.

The Ukrainian crisis continues to be the focus of investors’ attention, with accusations of ceasefire violations continuing today.

At the same time, Moscow continues to claim that the military units it had deployed on the border with Ukraine are gradually withdrawing, but for his part, the US Ambassador to the OSCE, Michael Carpenter, said at a meeting of the Organization that there are up to 190,000 Russian soldiers.

Meanwhile, investors continue to look for signs of how the Fed will move in its forthcoming interest rate hike, with bank official James Boulard reiterating his call for an aggressive stance yesterday before inflation slipped out of control.

As Oanda analyst Edward Moya puts it, “Wall Street feels very nervous as it looks to the left and sees growing geopolitical risks with the situation in Ukraine, while then it looks to the right and sees the possibility of an aggressive tightening by the Fed.”

In the individual movements of the shares, the fall of the oil prices has brought pressures to the companies in the field, with Devon Energy, APA and Schlumberger all falling by about 2%.

Dow Jones’s “weight” is Intel, which is sinking by almost 5%, after Bank of America repeated the “underperform” rating for the title of technology giant.

Finally, Roku’s share is falling by -25%, after the streaming services company lost its quarterly earnings estimates and was forced to downgrade its guidance.