The Wall Street S&P 500 benchmark fell 1.2%, driven lower by tech and energy stocks. Nasdaq Composite technology heavy lost 2.2%. Federal Reserve officials’ humorous comments helped the S&P 500 to its first weekly drop in a month last week, and Mike Zigmont, head of trading and research at Harvest Volatility Management, said the developments had “spoiled the mood” of even more optimistic. investors. “Watch out for the fact that yields are higher across the curve again and you have a declining environment,” he added. “Yields are just rising, climbing, climbing and stock optimists can no longer dismiss it.” The fall of the US followed losses in most of Asia and Europe earlier in the day. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index lost 0.6%, with the British FTSE 100 falling 0.7%, as data showed that the British economy had just grown in February. In Asia, mainland China Hang Seng China Enterprises index fell 3.8 percent and China CSI 300 benchmark index of Shanghai and Shenzhen shares fell 3.1 percent as the impact of the restrictions began. in Shanghai to limit the spread of Covid. to burden economic activity. In government debt markets, the yield on the 10-year US bond, which supports global borrowing costs, rose 0.08 percentage points to a new three-year high of 2.78%. Yields increase when prices fall. The yield on the 10-year German bond jumped 0.11 percentage points to 0.81%, its highest level since mid-2015. French markets provided a rare bright spot after the first round of the presidential election at the weekend. Incumbent President Emanuel Macron is expected to beat far-right rival Marin Le Pen in the final round of voting in two weeks, although polls suggest a tighter race from 2017. The Paris Stock Exchange CAC 40 closed the day 0.1% higher, while the gap between the yields of French and German bonds – a measure of the perceived risk of maintaining French debt – narrowed. The euro initially rallied against the dollar before falling back to 0.1% overnight. “In general, this is largely an expected result that will take the tension out of the foreign exchange market and offer some relief to the euro,” said Stephen Gallo, head of BMO’s European forex strategy. Oil prices fell more than 4%, with crude Brent falling below $ 100 a barrel for the first time in almost a month. West Texas Intermediate, the US oil index, fell to less than $ 95 a barrel. Plans to release record volumes of oil from strategic reserves and lockdowns for the coronavirus in China led the oil market to abandon most of the profits that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February. A period of extremely volatile trading since the invasion has seen the number of active futures on Brent – also known as open interest – fall sharply. “The ongoing Covid lockdown in China, together with the US and IEA equity stocks, is fueling capitulation in the oil markets,” said Bart Melek, chief commodity strategist at TD Securities. “These forces have been combined to reduce the immediate short-term pressures from self-proclaimed Russian barrels.”
