Recession worries and interest rate fears are driving investors on Wall Street on the last trading day of the year. As a consequence, the major indices slipped into the red. Oil prices, on the other hand, are making up ground.
On the last trading day of the crisis year 2022, US investors only touched shares with pointed fingers. The Dow Jones index of standard values closed 0.2 percent lower at 33,147 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.1 percent to 10,466 points. The broad S
Fears of a possible recession following the major rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve dampened sentiment again. Investors are now waiting for new impetus from economic figures in the coming week. "Data towards the end of 2022 has not been as encouraging as hoped and communications from the Fed and other institutions continue to be more hawkish than investors would like," said Craig Erlam, market analyst at trading house Oanda.
Investors were also concerned about the uncertainty about the situation in China after the strict corona policy was relaxed. The number of infections is currently increasing drastically. However, since there is hardly any testing anymore, these are not reflected in the official figures. Analysts therefore assume that the world's second largest economy will not recover until the end of the first quarter of 2023 at the earliest.
Against this background, investors threw US government bonds out of their portfolios. The yield on the 10-year bond climbed to 3.8786 percent from 3.835 percent the previous day. After a brief decline, oil prices have turned positive again. The reasons for this were travel at the end of the year and the government in Moscow's ban on oil exports to countries that have sanctioned Russia. Brent was up 3 percent to $85.99 a barrel and WTI was up 2.6 percent to $80.42 a barrel.
"The past year has been an exceptional year for commodity markets as unexpected supply uncertainty has led to heightened volatility and high prices," said analyst Ewa Manthey of ING Bank. "But 2023 is also likely to be a year of uncertainty."
In terms of individual values, Tesla shares rose by 1.1 percent against the general market trend. On the other hand, the paper tended to be more than 60 percent in the red over the year. This means that more than 820 billion dollars in market value have been destroyed by Elon Musk's e-car manufacturer. For Tesla, it was probably the worst year and quarter as well as the worst month in the company's history. Nevertheless, the US group is still worth more on the stock exchange than Toyota, BYD and Porsche together.
