Goldman Sachs Group Inc said it was closing its operations in Russia, becoming the first major Wall Street bank to exit the country following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Wall Street’s main indexes fell on Thursday, with tech stocks falling after rising consumer prices in February, cementing the case for an interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve later this month.
The Labor Department report shows consumer prices rose 7.9% year-over-year, the sharpest annual spike in 40 years.
While the numbers matched economists’ expectations, investors feared inflation would accelerate further in the coming months as Russia’s war against Ukraine pushed up the cost of oil and other commodities.
Nine of the 11 major S&P sectors declined, with technology, down 1.9%, the most after leading the Wall Street rally in the previous session. Chipmakers fell 2.2%.
Energy shares were up 1.2% after taking a breather on Wednesday.
“The bottom line is inflation has risen and there is more to come,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities.
“I wanted to hit the peak of inflation in the second quarter, but now it depends on oil. Maybe we won’t get any relief till the end of the year.”
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said last week that he would support a quarter-point increase when the US central bank meets next week and would later be “ready to move more aggressively” if inflation continues as expected. does not diminish rapidly.
Traders now see a 95% chance of a 25-basis-point increase by the Fed to its March meeting.
Big banks fell, with Citigroup down 2.1%.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc said it was closing its operations in Russia, becoming the first major Wall Street bank to exit the country following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, talks between Russia and Ukraine made no progress as the war entered its third week on Thursday.
At 09:55 am, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 246.12 points, or 0.74%, at 33,040.13, the S&P 500 was down 39.51 points, or 0.92%, at 4,238.37, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 190.70 points, or 1.44. %, at 13,064.84.
megacap growth stock Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms and Tesla Inc all slid more than 1%, while Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc fell more than 2.5% each. shares of heroine.com Inc jumped 4.8% after its board approved a 20-for-1 split of the e-commerce giant’s common stock and authorized a $10 billion buyback plan.
The number of issues declined to 2.71-to-1 on the NYSE and 3.10-to-1 on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded a new 52-week high and four new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 14 new highs and 79 new lows.