4.05pm: US benchmarks finish with first negative quarter in two years
US stocks finished the trading session lower as the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil price sild more than 6% after President Joe Biden revealed plans to release one million barrels of oil per day from the strategic petroleum reserve for about six months.
At the close, the Dow fell 551 points to 34,678, while the S&P 500 eased 72 points at 4,530 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipped 222 points to 14,221.
Notable movers included shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc, which sank nearly 8% after Barclays analysts downgraded the stock to ‘Equal Weight’ from ‘Overweight’.
12pm: US Equities lower midday
US stocks remained lower midday Thursday as the continued acceleration in the rate of inflation overshadowed a decline in the oil price following reports that US President Joe Biden will announce the release of up to a million barrels of oil a day from US strategic petroleum reserves.
The price of WTI crude oil declined by more than 5% to about $102 a barrel after reaching a multi-year peak of $130 earlier in March. Brent Crude was also down by 5% at around $108 a barrel.
News of the oil release came as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies including Russia (OPEC+) agreed to stick to an existing deal to gradually increase production.
As of noon, the Dow Jones was down 118 points, or 0.33%, at 35,111 while the S&P 500 fell 8 points, or 0,16%, to 4,595 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was 12 points, or 0.08%, lower at 14,430.
11.45am: Proactive North America headlines:
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Platinex acquires mining claims to expand its Shining Tree project area in Ontario
NEO Battery Materials provides corporate update including on full cell testing with NBMSiDE, and the near completion of its R&D Scale-Up Centre
BioLargo says 2021 revenue increased year-over-year as its cleantech and engineering solutions advanced
Wellteq Digital Health appoints health education veteran Andrew Hvizd as head of growth for its North American division
Delta 9 Cannabis doubles its retail stores with Uncle Sam's Cannabis Ltd acquisition; reports record 4Q revenue
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Camino Minerals to commence drill pad construction on new high-grade copper drill targets at Los Chapitos copper project
Belmont Resources kicks off drilling at its Come By Chance project in British Columbia
Alternus Energy closes acquisition of 11MW operational portfolio to complete 24MW agreement
Dalrada Energy Services says its division partners with imagineer to incubate Web3 foundation and future metaverse solutions
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Deepspatial says it expects significant revenue growth as it books new contracts
Nextleaf Solutions says it is set to supply Canada's first cannabis pharmacy with Glacial Gold products
Else Nutrition reports a 219% increase in fiscal year 2021 revenues as sales boom
Pure Gold Mining says its Red Lake gold mine generated $32M in revenue since the start of commercial production in August 2021
Bridgeline Digital says Optimizely partnership continues to drive revenue with another customer win in the B2B distribution sector
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Perma-Fix Environmental Services (NASDAQ:PESI) looks to 2022 with project backlog of over $66M in Services Segment
Outlook Therapeutics (NASDAQ:OTLK) submits Biologics License Application to US FDA for its investigational therapy to treat wet age-related macular degeneration
Kontrol Technologies reports record 2021 results after “watershed year”
ESE Entertainment says its Frenzy division set to produce TV broadcast for Warka Planet of Gamers Cup
Marvel Discovery says subsidiary New Marvel Energy to focus on small modular nuclear reactors for land and fuel
Clean Air Metals releases new drill results from Escape deposit Steepledge extension at Thunder Bay North, which augur well for resource update
Plurilock says Aurora Systems subsidiary wins US$1.5 million purchase order from the US Department of Defense
Looking Glass Labs’ House of Kibaa subsidiary to conduct first virtual land sale on April 16-17
Hapbee Technologies enters dealer partnership with Colorado-based Neurosculpting Institute
VolitionRx (NYSE-A:VNRX) makes ‘good progress’ in key areas as it ends 2021 with over $20M in cash
Ximen Mining marks further step in bid to bring the Kenville gold mine in BC back to life
NorthWest Copper (TSX-V:NWST) announces commencement of 2022 drill program with initial drilling at Kwanika off to an early start
Victory Resources says first phase drilling at Smokey lithium property in Nevada now complete
Talon Metals says it spent $38 million on the Tamarack nickel project in 2021
Kidoz attributes record revenue to growing demand for safe mobile advertising
9.45am: US shares start in the red
Wall Street shares started lower on Thursday - the last day of the first quarter, as US inflation roared into view once more.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged around 65 points at 35,228, while the S&P 500 dropped around 29 points at 4,602.
The tech-laden Nasdaq index lost around 177 points to stand at 14,442 in early deals.
The personal consumption price index - a favourite measure of inflation for the Federal Reserve, climbed in the USA to 6.4% in the 12 months ended in February this year, up from 6.2% in January, official figures showed. It is the steepest increase since January, 1982.
The more well-known consumer price index (CPI) rose by an even higher 7.9% in the 12 months ended in February.
It all adds to the issue of interest rate rises from the US central bank this year and in the foreseeable.
Today is the last trading day of March and Q1. US stocks have rallied in the second half of the month, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq on pace to finish the month of March up about 5% each and the Dow up nearly 4%.
But over the first quarter as a whole, the Dow and S&P 500 are both down about 3% and the Nasdaq is off more than 7%. For all three averages, this will be the first negative quarter since the first quarter of 2020, which saw the start of the pandemic in the USA.
6.30am: Stronger start predicted
US stocks are expected to open higher on Thursday amid reports that the US may soon release oil from its vast reserves to calm nervous markets and fight inflation.
Benchmark oil prices tumbled on the news, going some way to allay concerns that commodity-led inflationary pressures may yet be contained despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine now in its second month.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were flat but those for the S&P 500 were up 0.1%, while contracts for the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 were 0.4% higher.
Benchmark Brent crude futures were down 5.5% to $105.27 a barrel while WTI crude futures were down 6.2% to $101.18 a barrel.
“Crude slipped lower, with WTI taking a $100 handle for a time, as the White House indicated it would release as much as 180 million barrels from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It would be the largest ever release, the third in six months, and amount to almost two days of global oil demand,” said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com. “This is large enough to make a dent, but releases never alter longer-term imbalances.”
With much hanging on whether the US will indeed release oil reserves of as much as 1 million barrels a day, all eyes will be on US President Joe Biden’s speaking engagements. Some news reports suggest that an announcement could come today.
Oil prices have been a key talking point for markets since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started in late February and benchmark oil prices jumped from levels around $90 a barrel before the war broke out to highs over $130 a barrel. Sanctions on Russia’s oil exports and supply constraints have been fuelling large oil price fluctuations.
Expectations that the US Federal Reserve will lift interest rates quickly to fight inflation continue unabated in the background.
“Meanwhile reports indicate Fed officials are becoming concerned about a wage-price spiral – the exact thing several weeks ago they said they saw no evidence of. But it’s exactly what we were warning about; it’s the natural order once inflation expectations become unhinged,” added Wilson.
The latest weekly US jobless claims data will be released at 1.30pm today. In data out Wednesday, ADP private payrolls rose stronger than expected by 455,000 in March, suggesting that the crucial US non-farm payrolls, due out on Friday, will also come in strong, adding to the case for higher interest rates in the world’s biggest economy.
“The Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time since 2018 as it seeks to combat spiraling inflation that saw US CPI hit 7.9%. The Fed’s new, median dot plot calls for 7 hikes this year to 1.9%, with members penciling in 2.8% further out, which would take the Fed funds rate above neutral,” Wilson concluded.
Contact the author at jon.hopkins@proactiveinvestors.com