Morgans AM: Thursday, 18 November 2021

Morgans Financial Limited

US equity markets weaker as inflation concerns continued to drag on sentiment - Dow down -211-points or -0.58% . The broader S&P500 eased -0.26%, with Energy (down -1.78%) leading seven of the eleven primary sectors lower. More defensive sectors outperformed, with Real Estate up +0.65%, Consumer Discretionary +0.59% and Health Care +0.16%. The Nasdaq -0.33%. PayPal Holdings Inc fell -4.34%, with analysts at Bernstein downgrading the company to “market perform”. Bernstein noted that PayPal has a reputation for disrupting the payments ecosystem, but it “now risks getting disrupted” itself and cited various competitive pressures for the digital payments giant (including the “increasing aggregation” of e-commerce activity on large platforms like Amazon.com Inc (up +0.21%) and Shopify Inc (down -2.25%). The small capitalisation Russell 2000 shed -1.16%.