NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – After the best three-day rally since 2020, the US stock markets are expected to open negatively on the “big day of expiry”. Options and futures on indices and individual stocks expire this Friday. Larger market players often try to influence the prices in the direction they want before the expiry date. This often leads to larger price fluctuations.
The Dow Jones Industrial was assessed by the broker IG around three quarters of an hour before the start of trading at 34,313 points and thus around 0.5 percent lower. On a weekly basis, however, the leading US index is showing a whopping gain of around 4 percent. The technology-heavy selection index Nasdaq 100 was calculated around 0.7 percent in the red on Friday before the market.
The rise in oil prices, which continued the largest increase in 16 months, is likely to provide negative impetus. “In this environment of tighter monetary policy and higher inflationary risks globally, we continue to believe there is greater downside for risky assets over the medium term,” noted Peter Chatwell, market strategist at Mizuho International. Both the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England raised interest rates this week in a bid to dampen the strongest inflation in many years.
Otherwise, the war in Ukraine remains a dominant topic on Wall Street. A phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chancellor Olaf Scholz did not bring any tangible progress. US President Joe Biden wants to call Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday. China is Russia’s most important ally, but shows a certain detachment in attacking Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian troops have attacked the airport in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. According to Ukrainian information, nine new evacuation corridors for evacuating civilians from contested areas are planned for Friday.
Among the individual values, the shares of Fedex are likely to be in focus. The logistics group earned brilliantly in the most recent business quarter thanks to the ongoing boom in online orders. Net profit climbed by more than 20 percent compared to the same period last year, and revenues increased by almost ten percent. However, the analysts had expected an even better quarterly result. In pre-market trading, the FedEx papers were last listed 2.8 percent in the red.
The shares of Gamestop, which are particularly popular with risk-taking private investors, fell by 8.4 percent before the market. The video games retailer closed the fourth business quarter with a decline in earnings and thus missed analysts’ expectations. However, sales were better than forecast./edh/stk
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