On Thursday (November 16th) in the US market, the stock market fell, ending the month's rally.
As of press release, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.36%. The Standard&Poor's 500 Index fell 0.09%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.07%.
Chevron fell more than 1%, while the S&P 500 energy sector fell 2.5%, marking its worst day in more than a month. West Texas Intermediate's December contract fell by more than 4%.
Better than expected inflation data boosted the stock market this month. Half way through November, the S&P 500 index rose by over 7%, the Dow Jones index rose by over 5%, and the Nasdaq index rose by over 9% over the same period.
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The Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures wholesale prices, fell by 0.5% in October. This is the largest monthly decline since April 2020.
Just a day ago, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) remained stable in October, which is another encouraging sign for investors hoping that the Federal Reserve will see inflation trends cool enough to prevent interest rate hikes. In Tuesday's trading, the Standard&Poor's 500 Index and Nasdaq Index recorded their largest gains since April.
Tom Hainlin, senior investment strategist at United States Bank Wealth Management, said, "The economic data so far confirms that we are currently in a mild slowdown, with inflation rates falling, but there are no signs of a serious contraction
Cisco's stock fell 12% after the company provided weak guidance for this quarter and the entire fiscal year. Network security company Palo Alto Networks
）After releasing dismal forecasts, the company's stock price fell by 7%.
After the retail giant Wal Mart lowered its expected earnings forecast for this year, its share price fell by more than 7%. Macy's stock price rose 11% after its third quarter earnings exceeded expectations.
The spot price of gold rose significantly on Thursday, reaching a peak of 1987.66 and currently trading at $1983.01 per ounce, with a intraday increase of 1.21%.
According to economic data released by the US Department of Labor on Thursday, the number of initial claims for unemployment benefits increased by 13000 to 231000 in the week ending November 11th, with market expectations for an increase of 220000. Due to interest rate hikes suppressing demand, the labor market is cooling down. The report shows that the number of people applying for unemployment benefits has increased by 32000 to 1865000, and has been increasing since September. Most economists attribute this growth to the difficulty of adjusting data based on seasonal fluctuations, rather than substantive changes in the labor market. They expect that this issue will be resolved when the government revises the data next spring.
The number of people applying for unemployment benefits in the United States has risen to its highest level in nearly two years, highlighting the increasing challenges faced by unemployed workers in finding new jobs.
In addition, industrial production in October did not meet expectations, falling by 0.3% and 0.6% month on month, in line with market expectations. These unfavorable US economic data exacerbated the decline of US treasury bond bonds. US treasury bond are usually regarded as the cost of holding non yielding metals, leading to soaring prices. The two-year bond interest rate fell to 4.83%, while the 5-year and 10-year yields decreased by 4.43% and 4.45%, respectively.
Meanwhile, the CME FedWatch tool indicates that the market has digested the December pause in interest rate hikes and is currently digesting the interest rate cuts from April to May 2024. In this sense, as long as the US dollar weakens, investors believe that gold may further rise.
