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US equity markets extended their strong start to the month and quarter - Dow rallied +825-points or +2.80%, with Boeing Co (up +5.92%) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc (+5.25%) alone contributing over >150-points in gains. The broader S&P500 jumped +3.06%, logging its best two-day gain (+5.65%) since April 2020. Energy (up +4.34%) led all eleven primary sectors higher for a second consecutive session, with Financials (+3.79%) and Consumer Discretionary (3.56%) both advancing over >3.5%. The rally comes after three straight quarters of declines for the S&P 500 - the longest quarterly losing streak since 2008. Exxon Mobil Corp estimates that changes in liquid prices will have a negative effect of between US$1.4B to US$1.8B in the third quarter compared with second-quarter results, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The oil and gas company also forecast a favourable effect of US$1.8B to US$2.2B on results for the recent quarter due to changes in gas prices, compared with the second quarter. Exxon Mobil is slated to release its third quarter result on 28 October. The technology-centric Nasdaq climbed +3.32%. Tesla Inc settled +2.90% higher, pulling back from an earlier session rally of as much as +6.2% following the release of a letter filed with the SEC in which the electric vehicle maker's chief executive, Elon Musk, proposed moving forward with his acquisition of Twitter Inc (up +22.24%) on the original terms (including the US$54.20 per share bid price). Amazon.com Inc (up +4.50%) is implementing a hiring freeze on the corporate side of its retail business for the rest of the year, according to a New York Times report, becoming the latest company to pause hiring plans amid growing concerns about an economic downturn. Meta Platforms Inc (up +1.20%), which owns Facebook and Instagram, is reportedly planning to reduce its own headcount amid fears over what the economy might look like in the coming months. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 outperformed with a +3.91% gain. Some traders suggested some of last week’s selling pressure may have been driven by quarter-end rebalancing, which has now abated.

US equity markets opened the new month and quarter firmly on the front foot, with the benchmark indices rallying over >2% - Dow rallied +765-points or +2.66%, rising as much as +922 points at its session peak and recording its the biggest percentage gain since 24 June, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The broader S&P500 gained +2.59%, with Energy climbing +5.77% to lead all eleven primary sectors higher. Chevron Corp rose +5.61%, Exxon Mobil Corp +5.28%, Marathon Petroleum Corp +3.48%. The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund, an exchange-traded fund that aims to mirror the performance of the S&P 500 energy sector, rose +5.65% to US$76.09, its biggest daily percentage-point gain since 23 November, 2020, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Tesla Inc fell -8.61% after the electric vehicle maker released third quarter delivery figures on Sunday (2 October) that fell short of consensus expectations. General Motors Co rose +2.43% after reporting that third-quarter vehicle sales increased +24% (to 555,580) compared to a year ago, when supply chain issues weighed more heavily on the company’s output. The Nasdaq rose +2.25%, with Apple Inc up +3.08% and Microsoft Corp +3.37%. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 gained +2.65%.

US equity markets resumed their slide, dragging the S&P500 to a fresh 2022 low amid a broad-based decline - Dow fell -458-points or -1.54%, having been down as much as -686-points at its session lows. The broader S&P500 dropped -2.11% to 3,640.47, logging its lowest close since 30 November, 2020. Utilities (down -4.07%) led all eleven primary sectors lower. Energy outperformed albeit the sector settled with a -0.13% decline.

US equity markets resumed their slide, dragging the S&P500 to a fresh 2022 low amid a broad-based decline - Dow fell -458-points or -1.54%, having been down as much as -686-points at its session lows. The broader S&P500 dropped -2.11% to 3,640.47, logging its lowest close since 30 November, 2020. Utilities (down -4.07%) led all eleven primary sectors lower. Energy outperformed albeit the sector settled with a -0.13% decline. Occidental Petroleum Corp rose +1.14% after a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing showed that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc (down -0.98%) bought another 6M shares, paying as much as US$61.37 per share and lifting their stake in the energy company to 20.9%. The Nasdaq shed -2.81%. Apple Inc – also a Dow component – fell -4.91% to US$142.48 - after Bank of America downgraded the stock to ‘neutral’ from ‘buy’ (cutting their price target to US$160 per share from US$185), noting that demand trends could worsen heading into the new fiscal year. Meta Platforms Inc fell -3.67% following a Bloomberg report that Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Zuckerberg told staff that the social media and metaverse company is freezing hiring and will take steps to restructure the business. The report follows comments from Mr Zuckerberg on the company’s June quarter earnings call in which he said it was Meta’s plan “to steadily reduce headcount growth over the next year. Many teams are going to shrink so we can shift energy to other areas, and I wanted to give our leaders the ability to decide within their teams where to double down, where to backfill attrition, and where to restructure teams while minimizing thrash to the long term initiatives.” The small capitalisation Russell 2000 dropped -2.35%.

The Dow and S&P500 snapped a six session losing streak, advancing for the first time since the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates again a week ago as Treasury yields retreated sharply and following a surprise intervention from the Bank of England (BoE) in the U.K. government bond market - Dow climbed +549-points or +1.88% to 29,683.74 a day after logging its lowest close since 12 November, 2020. The index settled 19.3% below its 4 January record close of 36,799.65. Apple Inc was the only Dow constituent not to advance, falling -1.27% after Bloomberg News reported that the company is dropping plans to boost production of its latest iPhones this year as a surge in demand failed to materialize. Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg said suppliers have been told to pull back from efforts to ramp up assembly of about 6M iPhone 14 units, settling on a goal of producing ~90M iPhone 14s by the end of the year, about the same as iPhone 13 production last year, and in line with an outlook that Bloomberg reported in August. Bloomberg added that sources said demand for the higher-priced iPhone Pro model was stronger than for the lower-priced models. Bloomberg had earlier reported that iPhone 14 sales were off to a sluggish start in China, down ~11% than comparable sales of the iPhone 13 last year. Home Depot Inc (up +5.02%) was the leading Dow performer, while Boeing Co (up +4.65%) and Caterpillar Inc (+3.28%) also traded strongly. The broader S&P500 gained +1.97%, snapping its longest losing streak since February 2020 and rebounding from its lowest settlement since 30 November, 2020. Energy (up +4.40%) at atop the primary sector leaderboard for a second straight session and led all eleven primary sectors higher. Chevron Corp rose +3.38% and Exxon Mobil Corp +3.64% and Occidental Petroleum Corp +4.92%. The technology-centric Nasdaq rallied +2.02%. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 jumped +3.17%.

US equity markets retreated, pushing the Dow into official bear market territory for the first time in more than two years amid further volatility in bond and currency markets

US equity markets continued to slide on Friday (23 September), capping a tumultuous week dominated by hawkish central bank updates that exerted particular pressure on growth stocks - Dow fell -486-points or -1.62% to 29,590.41, carving out a fresh 2022 closing low despite paring an earlier decline of as much as -826-points, and settling at its lowest level since 20 November, 2020. It also marked the first close below 2%. Ford Motor Co fell -3.60% after The Wall Street Journal reported the company had delayed delivery of some vehicles because it didn’t have enough blue oval badges to put on them. This followed the automaker’s warning last Monday (19 September) that it would end the third quarter with more unfinished vehicles than it had previously expected. The Nasdaq declined -1.80%. Google-parent Alphabet Inc fell -1.40% after CNBC reported that Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sundar Pichai faced heated questions from employees at an all-hands meeting last week, with staffers expressing concern about cost cuts and recent comments from Pichai regarding the need to improve productivity by 20%. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 lost -2.48%.

US equity markets retreated amid mounting concerns that the Federal Reserve’s aggressive monetary policy will tip the economy into a recession - Dow fell -107-points or -0.35%. Salesforce Inc rose +1.71% after the customer relationship management software company hosted an Investor Day, reiterating the fiscal 2023 revenue outlook of ~US$31B, after the company cut the outlook in May (to a range of US$31.7B-to-US$31.8B from US$32.0-to-US$32.1B in March), and lowered it again in August (to US$30.9B- to-US$31.0b). Boeing Co edged ~% higher in after-hours trading (following a -3.20% decline in regular trading) after The Wall Street Journal reported that the aerospace and defence company was seen "poised" to settle a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into its 737 Max crashes a few years back. The settlement pertains to "allegedly misleading statements" from the company and then-Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg about the jets that crashed in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The broader S&P500 -0.84%, with the Consumer Discretionary sector (down -2.16%) leading nine of the eleven primary sectors lower. Health Care (up +0.51%) and Communication Services (+0.06%) were the only primary sectors to advance overnioght. The Nasdaq -1.37%. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 lost -2.26%.

US equity markets retreated as Treasury yields continued to climb on the eve of the Federal Reserve’s latest interest rate decision - Dow down -313-points or -1.01%, falling as much as -550-points earlier in the session. The broader S&P500 fell -1.13%, with Real Estate (down -2.57%) and Materials (-1.90%) leading all eleven primary sectors lower. Ford Motor Co tumbled -12.32% to log its worst single session drop since 2011 after the automaker told investors after the close of the previous session that it saw a +US$1B increase in supply chain costs during the third quarter. General Motors Co fell -5.63%. The Nasdaq -0.95%. Apple Inc rose +1.57% after announcing price rises for the app store in a number of Asian and European countries, likely a response to the surge in the U.S. dollar. Nvidia Corp (down -1.54%) hosted their GPU Technology Conference overnight and said that the launch of its next generation of gaming cards is well positioned. The RTX 4090 Gaming chips using the company’s next-generation “Ada Lovelace” architecture, said to perform up to four times faster than its previous generation RTX 3090 Ti, will be available on 12 October for a suggested retail price of US$1,599. Following the keynote address, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jensen Huang told analysts that while gaming end markets are soft, they’re not so soft that Nvidia won’t be able to sell excess inventory it has in the channel. The Dow Jones Transport Average, viewed as a barometer of economic health, dropped -2.27% to a near 19-month low, with all 20 components retreating. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 lost -1.40%.

US equity markets logged modest gains ahead of the Federal Reserve kicking off their latest two day monetary policy meeting tonight AEST - Dow up +197-points or +0.64%, recovering from an earlier session decline of as much as -263-points. The broader S&P500 added +0.69%, with Materials (up +1.63%), Consumer Discretionary (+1.34%), Industrials (+1.33%), Utilities (+1.32%) and Financials (+1.12%) all rebounded over >1% to lead nine of the eleven primary sectors higher. Healthcare (down -0.54%) and Real Estate (-0.21%) were the only primary sectors to close in the red. Vaccine manufacturers Pfizer Inc (-1.28%), Moderna Inc (down -7.14%), BioNTech SE (-8.60%) and Novavax Inc (-6.51%) all declined a day after President Joe Biden said in a CBS interview that "the pandemic is over". Ford Motor Co fell over >4% in extended trading after the automaker told investors it saw a +US$1B increase in supply chain costs during the third quarter. Ford reiterated its full-year guidance for adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of between US$11.5B and US$12.5B. The company is slated to release its third quarter result on 26 October. The Nasdaq rose +0.76%. Chipmaker Nvidia Corp (up +1.39%) hosts a GTC Financial Analyst Q&A tonight AEST. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 gained +0.81%.