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U.S. stock markets opened the trading week lower on Monday as investors braced for the busiest week of the 2022 fourth-quarter report season and a possible Federal Reserve rate hike on Wednesday.
Nearly 20% of the companies traded in the S&P 500 index will publish their results this week, among others notable this week are McDonald’s (NYSE: ), General Motors (NYSE: ), Exxon Mobil (NYSE: ), Starbucks (NASDAQ: ), Ford (NYSE 🙂 and more.
Tech giants Apple (NASDAQ: ), Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: ), Amazon (NASDAQ: ) and Alphabet (NASDAQ: ) will also report this week. All four stocks are down at the opening of trading at a rate of about 1%.
As of 4:50 p.m. the index is down 0.3%, the index is weakening 0.6% and the index is losing 1%.
The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee will convene for a two-day meeting that will begin on Tuesday and on Wednesday the central bank will announce its decision, when according to market estimates the Fed will raise interest rates by a quarter of a percent.
Investors will look for clues in Fed Chairman Powell’s words regarding the continuation of the interest rate hikes to understand how far the central bank will continue to raise interest rates in its fight against inflation.
The markets benefit from rate hikes from the beginning of 2022, partly because of a slowdown in private consumption and because of lower data, which some investors believe may cause the Fed to soon slow down its rate hike campaign.
The forecasts in the capital markets are that the interest rate in the US will reach a peak of 4.9% in June, below the 5% level that the Fed’s policymakers have been talking about in recent weeks.
Tesla shares (NASDAQ: ) rose 0.8% after Berenberg analysts upgraded the stock rating to “buy” from “hold”, following the sharp declines it suffered in recent months and a price cut for some of its models. The target price set by Berenberg’s analysts for Tesla stock is $200 per share.
Shares of JD.com (NASDAQ: ) fell 5.7% following reports that the Chinese e-commerce company is shutting down online services in Thailand and Indonesia.
Among the Israeli stocks traded in New York, the shares of G Medical (NASDAQ: ), the telemedicine company that jumps 109% after receiving patent approval for its monitoring products marketed in the US, stand out at the opening of trading.
Increases are also recorded in the shares of Rail Vision (NASDAQ: ) which climbs 6.9%, Stakeholder Foods (NASDAQ: ) adds 5.3% and Seams (NYSE: ) climbs 2.5%.
On the other hand, Barnmiller (NASDAQ: ) falls 8.5%, Nikes (TASE: ) loses 6.5% and Teva (NYSE: ) weakens 1.2%.