US stocks end rocky week lower ahead of holiday

NEW YORK (AFP) - New York equities ended a rocky week mostly higher on Friday (June 17) but lower for the week amid worsening fears of recession as the US central bank takes aggressive action against inflation.

In the last session before the holiday weekend, the broad-based S&P 500, which entered a bear market earlier this week, added 0.2 per cent to finish at 3,674.84, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index gained 1.4 per cent to 10,798.35.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1 per cent to 29,888.78, after closing below 30,000 on Thursday for the first time since January 2021.

The S&P lost 5.8 per cent in the week, its worst performance since 2020, while the Dow and Nasdaq dropped 4.8 per cent.

Wall Street stocks have been battered amid moves to raise interest rates to combat blistering inflation.

Investors initially welcomed the Federal Reserve's super-sized rate hike on Wednesday, but retreated after other central banks including the Bank of England joined.

The Fed promised there are more big rate hikes to come, and recent economic data has not helped sentiment, including weak manufacturing data that followed a surprising resurgence in inflation in May.

Karl Haeling of LBBW said "markets are oversold, but probably not oversold enough to call for a bottom."

He said the modest gains Friday likely mark "a little technical pause."

But Kim Forrest of Bokeh Capital Partners did not read a lot into the session.

"We've had a pretty dramatic sell off yesterday. And it's a holiday on Monday and people probably left, so there are fewer traders out there today," Forrest told AFP.