Indices rose rapidly from lows in late Wednesday trading, but remained lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average reduced the loss to 1% – to a drop of 320 points. Swiss banking giant Swiss credit (CS) fell as it struggled to stay afloat while based in the US First Republic (FRC) was slammed with a junk rating.
Among the Dow Jones stocks, Microsoft (MSFT) is on track to rise for a third consecutive day. Earlier, the software giant already made an AI tool available on Azure OpenAI.
Amgen (AMGN) and Merck (MRK) stood up along with Walgreens (WBA) and walmart (WMT).
The S&P 500 was also outside the lows of the session, down just under 1% at 3pm ET. Steel dynamics (STLD) sold and fell below the 50-day mark. The steelmaker is reportedly expecting lower profits in the first quarter.
The Nasdaq erased most of its losses well and was nearly flat on the hour. Tech stocks gave the index some support. Google older Alphabet (GOOGL) gained more than 2%. Netflix (NFLX) was up 3%. Both stocks were near today’s highs.
Volume on the NYSE and Nasdaq was higher compared to the same time on Tuesday.
Crude oil fell 5.2% to $67.61 a barrel. Oil giants Halliburton (To fetch SLB (SLB) fell more than 8% as other energy stocks plummeted.
The 10-year Treasury yield fell 18 basis points to 3.45%. The price of gold rose while Bitcoin fell.
Bankrun contagion got a reboot on Wednesday. Shares of Credit Suisse plummeted after its largest investor, Saudi National Bank, said it would not further invest in the Swiss bank. That cancels previous plans last year of a possible investment of up to 1.5 billion Swiss francs.
X
First Republic (FRC) was downgraded sharply to junk by S&P Global Ratings over concerns of customer withdrawals. That’s a four-level slash from A- to BB+, according to the Wall Street Journal. The new rating puts the stock squarely in speculative territory. Shares plunged.
Elsewhere, shares of Karl Schwab (SCHW) was up 5% in strong volume after last week’s heavy sell-off. CEO Walt Bettinger said the brokerage firm wasn’t in major trouble and didn’t need to look in a hurry to raise money to keep going. Bancorp of the Western Alliance (WAL) and Metropolitan bank (MCB) were among the regional banks that pulled back from heavy losses.
Tech Stocks Beyond Dow Jones: AMD Outperforms Buy Point
Advanced micro devices (AMD) breaks out of a flat base and rises slightly above an 89.04 entry. Volume is 28% above average.
Shares of Facebook older Meta platforms (META) rose again after the huge 7% gain on Tuesday. The IBD Leaderboard stock is building a flat base with an entry of 197.26. Also on the standings, Nvidia (NVDA) inversely higher.
Stocks move today
AerCap (AER) fell below the 200-day limit. The aircraft leasing company dipped below the 50-day mark on March 8 and is working on a six-day loss streak.
Fertilizer maker shares Bunge (BG) fell 7%, reversing Tuesday’s gains. Shares rose 14% on Tuesday on news that Corteva (CTVA) and Chevron (CVX) had partnered with Bunge for vegetable oil products.
According to economic data, wholesale prices rose less in February than in January. Excluding food and energy, they remained unchanged. The producer price index fell 0.1% in February and rose 4.6% for the full year. US retail sales also fell 0.4% in February, a sharper drop than the 0.3%.
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