NEW YORK, April 20 ― The three main Wall Street benchmarks had their best days in over a month yesterday, with the Nasdaq closing up 2.2 per cent, as investors responded to positive earnings and dovish comments from two US Federal Reserve officials on interest rate rises.
“It certainly feels like every earnings season, especially since March 2020, is more important than the next, but particularly given where we sit in the economic cycle, the Fed's rate hike cycle, and the elevated inflation backdrop,” said Max Grinacoff, equity derivatives strategist at BNP Paribas. St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard on Monday repeated his case for increasing the rates to 3.5 per cent by the end of the year to slow a 40-year-high inflation. He also said he did not rule out a 75 basis points rate hike.
“We typically assume higher yields should be beneficial for banks, but that correlation has broken down a bit and it's been the sectors most negatively-correlated to rising rates - defensive sectors - which have actually rallied,” said BNP's Grinacoff. This year's rally in crude prices, which are still up around a third despite yesterday's declines, helped Halliburton Co post an 85 per cent rise in first-quarter adjusted profit as demand for its services and equipment increased. However, the oilfield services firm's shares were 0.8 per cent lower, amid the wider slump in energy stocks.
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