US stocks end downcast Q1 on losing note
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Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York City.
PHOTO: REUTERS
NEW YORK (AFP) - Wall Street stocks dropped on Thursday (March 31) in a weak finale to a downcast quarter during which equities retreated on worries about tightening monetary policy and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Thursday's losses in the equity market came as oil prices tumbled following President Joe Biden's sweeping announcement of an unprecedented release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Equities were in the red the entire day, but lost ground especially in the last hour of trading in a shift analysts attributed to end-of-quarter portfolio flows.
"It feels like we are at a better place at the end of the quarter than we were starting the quarter," said Art Hogan, chief strategist at National Securities.
The broad-based S&P 500 finished at 4,530.41, down 1.6 per cent for the day and just under 5 per cent for the quarter.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 1.6 per cent in the session to close at 34,678.35, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 1.5 per cent to 14,220.52.
Labour Department data showed that fewer Americans were receiving regular unemployment benefits than at any time in more than five decades.
However, other economic data showed disappointing US spending figures in February as shoppers contended with a 6.4 per cent jump in prices compared to February 2021.
The reports come ahead of Friday's closely-anticipated government jobs data.
The biggest news of the day came when Biden announced a giant release from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve of a million barrels of oil every day for six months to counter spiking gasoline prices caused by Russia's attack on its neighbour.
Wall Street stocks tumbled in the first two months of 2022 amid worries over the Ukraine crisis and the Federal Reserve's moves to tighten policy and rein in inflation.
Equities have rebounded somewhat in March, partly on a sense the market has been oversold.
"The market is at a place where we've priced in efficiently a lot of the headwinds that are ahead of us," Hogan said.
