Morgans AM: Tuesday, 30 August 2022

Morgans Financial Limited

US equity markets logged back-to-back losses as investors continued to digest Federal Reserve Chief Jerome Powell’s address at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium last Friday (26 August) in which he signalled the central bank would keep hiking rates to tame inflation - Dow fell -184-points or -0.57%, Dow Inc dropped -1.63%, pairing a earlier decline of as much as -3.5%, after analysts at KeyBanc Capital turned bearish on the chemicals and specialty materials company (cutting their recommendation to “underweight”), citing concerns that the “meaningful” exposure to commodities and Europe skews the risk-versus-reward profile to the downside. The bearish stance comes after Dow Jones Newswires reported last week that Dow told its customers that it would temporarily reduce polyethylene (PE) operating rates by 15%. The broader S&P500 -0.67%, with Information Technology (down -1.28%) the worst performing primary sector for a second straight session and leading nine of eleven primary sectors lower. Energy (up +1.54%) and Utilities (+0.25%) were the only primary sectors to advance. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co dropped -6.24% after the pharmaceutical company reported results from a mid-stage trial of its developing stroke treatment that failed to meet the main objective of the study. The S&P 500 and Dow both briefly flipped positive earlier in the overnight session, but failed to hold those gains as losses mounted heading into the closing bell. The Nasdaq lost -1.02%. Apple Inc (down -1.37%) is holding a launch event at its headquarters in Cupertino, California, next week (7 September) and is expected to announce new iPhone models (as it has every September since 2012). This year’s event has the tagline “far out,” which could refer to features such as night-sky photography. Netflix Inc added +0.58% after Bloomberg reported that the streaming giant is considering pricing its ad-supported tier at between US$7-to-US$9 per month, with the service expected to be launched in the final quarter of the year in a handful of markets. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 lost -0.89%.