US Stocks tumble on China Covid-19 worries

12 Jul 2022 , 08:56 AM

The US shares moved significantly down on Monday, 11 July 2022, with the Dow, the Nasdaq, and the S&P 500 all ended the day firmly in negative territory. The weakness on Wall Street was largely due to renewed Covid concerns after Shanghai reported its first case of the highly infectious BA.5 omicron sub-variant. Also sentiments were downbeat as investors prepared for fresh inflation data and corporate earnings that could influence the Federal Reserves path for interest-rate increases. At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index declined 164.31 points, or 0.52%, to 31,173.84. The S&P500 index was down 44.95 points, or 1.158%, to 3,854.43. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 262.71 points, or 2.26%, to 11,372.60. Total 9 of 11 major S&P sectors ended the session lower, with communication services (down 2.8%), consumer discretionary (down 2.76%), information technology (down 1.4%), energy (down 0.9%), and financial (down 0.83%) issues suffered largest percentage losses. utilities was the clear winner, gaining 0.64%. The market was rattled by news that China had discovered its first case of a highly transmissible Omicron sub-variant in Shanghai and that new cases had jumped to 63 in the Chinas largest city from 52 a day earlier. Traders were nervous that the discovery of the new subvariant and the highest number of daily new cases in Shanghai since May could lead to another round of mass testing, and more Covid lockdowns may lie ahead. Some traders stuck to the sidelines with the release of reports on consumer and producer price inflation, retail sales and industrial production and earnings season unofficially gets underway later this week. The season kicks off with earnings from PepsiCo and Delta Air Lines on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by bank stocks JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Citigroup later in the week. Shares of Casino operators Wynn Resorts (WYNN) and Las Vegas Sands (LVS) posted steep losses, plunging by 6.5% and 6.3%, respectively, on the back of worsening Covid trends in China, including a week-long shutdown of casinos in Macau. Shares of Twitter (TWTR) also moved sharply lower after Elon Musk called off his $44 billion takeover of the social media giant. Twitter said it plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. Among Indian ADR, WNS Holdings fell 1.9% to $76.10, ICICI Bank fell 0.3% to $19.19, HDFC Bank fell 0.8% to $59.30, Tata Motors fell 2.3% to $27.26, Azure Power Global declined 13.1% to $11.13, Wipro fell 2.1% to $5.15, and INFOSYS fell 3.2% to $18.46. Dr Reddys Labs added 1% to $56.22. Powered by Capital Market – Live News