Morgans AM: Monday, 19 December 2022

Morgans Financial Limited

The S&P500 and Nasdaq extended losses into a third consecutive session on Friday (16 December) amid a volatile ‘Quadruple Witching’ session that saw the simultaneous expiration of stock index futures, stock index options, stock options and single-stock futures worth ~US$4 trillion (including US$2.4 trillion tied to S&P 500 index futures) - Dow fell -282-points or -0.85%, paring an earlier session decline of ~548-points. Goldman Sachs Group Inc lost -0.99% following reports that the US investment bank is preparing to lay off as many as 3,900 employees starting in January as chief executive David Solomon seeks to boost profitability amid economic headwinds. The plans are still being drawn up, and it is possible that the current target for a cull of “up to 8 per cent” of its 49,000 global workforce will be slimmed down if the business outlook improves, according to three people familiar with the discussions. The broader S&P500 lost -1.11%, with Real Estate (down -2.96%), Consumer Discretionary (-1.74%) and Utilities (-1.66%) all down over >1.5% and leading all eleven primary sectors lower. Tesla Inc dropped -4.72% to cap the worst weekly performance (down -16.1%) for the electric vehicle maker’s shares since 2020 and fourth-worst week in history for the shares after a series of three weeks in late February and early March 2020, when investors sold stocks in fear of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects. Tesla ended the week with a market capitalisation of less than US$3.5B in Tesla stock late last Wednesday (14 December), after performing the trades over the three previous trading sessions, when the price declined a cumulative 12.4%. In total, the Tesla CEO has sold US$39.3B worth of Tesla stock in the past 13 months. The Nasdaq shed-0.97%. However, Meta Platforms Inc rose +2.82%, buoyed by an upgrade to ‘overweight’ from ‘neutral’ by JPMorgan. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 lost -0.63%.