US: Stocks end mixed on Russia-Ukraine crisis, rate hike woes

1 Mar 2022 , 09:23 AM

The US stock market finished session mixed on Monday, 28 February 2022, with investors wrestling with uncertainty, as the latest wave of western sanctions targeting Russia added to worries about soaring inflation and the Federal Reserves rate-hike plans.

The United States over the weekend announced punishing sanctions on Russia that touched on its central bank and the ability of some financial institutions to access the SWIFT financial messaging system.

At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index fell 166.15 points, or 0.49%, to 33,892.60. The S&P500 index was down 10.71 points, or 0.24%, to 4,373.94. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index grew 56.77 points, or 0.41%, to 13,751.40. For the month, the S&P 500 fell 3.2% in February, while the Dow sank 3.6% and Nasdaq lost 3.4%.

Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE exchange by 1799 to 1560 and 131 closed unchanged. In the NASDAQ, 2341 issues advanced, 2410 issues declined, and 274 issues unchanged.

Total 6 of 11 major S&P 500 sector indexes declined, with bottom performing issues were real estate (down 1.77%), financials (down 1.45%), consumer staples (down 1.31%), and healthcare (down 0.75%), while top performing issues included energy (up 2.57%), industrial (up 0.7%), and consumer discretionary (up 0.6%).

Shares of defence related companies rallied on following news that Germany would increase its military spending. Raytheon Technologies, Lockheed Martin Corp, General Dynamics Corp, Northrop Grumman and L3Harris Technologies gained between 2.8% and 8%.

Shares of cyber security companies also rallied, with Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Zscaler and CrowdStrike Holdings all climbing more than 4%.

Delta Air Lines Inc shares dropped 3.9% after reports that Russia closed its airspace to airlines from 36 countries in response to Ukraine-related sanctions targeting its aviation sector.

First Horizon Corp shares surged 29% after TD Bank Group offered to acquire the U.S. bank in an all-cash deal valued at $13.4 billion.

Among Indian ADR, INFOSYS fell 1.66% to $22.46, Wipro fell 1.88% to $7.29, HDFC Bank fell 6.54% to $62.17, ICICI Bank fell 1.27% to $19.47, Tata Motors fell 1.66% to $30.29, WNS Holdings sank 2.2% to $82.63, and Dr Reddys Labs fell 3.8% to $53.42. Azure Power Global added 5.8% to $16.55.

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