Wall Street closes with mixed results awaiting Jerome Powell’s speech

The S&P 500 closed lower on Tuesday, with losses in Apple y Amazonawaiting the next speech of the president of the Federal Reserve (Fed) of the United States, Jerome Powell, which could provide clues about the magnitude of future interest rate hikes.

Investors also turned their attention to the recent protests against the Covid-19 restrictions in China, which affected even the world’s largest iPhone factory.

The actions of Apple they fell 2.1%, for the fourth consecutive session.

Powell will speak at a Brookings Institution event on Wednesday about the outlook for the US economy and labor market. Investors will be looking for clues as to when the Fed will slow down its aggressive rate hikes.

“No one is willing to buy before tomorrow with Powell speaking. Everyone is nervous about what he’s going to say,” said Ron Saba, a senior portfolio manager at Horizon Investments in Charlotte.

The titles of Amazon, Nvidia and Tesla were losing more than 1% each.

The referential S&P 500 is heading for its second straight month of earnings amid hopes that the Federal Reserve slow its interest rate hikes and a handful of inflation readings that showed a slight cooling in prices.

The Fed it has made four consecutive 75 basis point rate hikes, and is expected to slow to a 50 basis point move in December.

Data on Tuesday showed that the consumer confidence The US fell to a four-month low in November, with households less willing to spend on big-ticket items over the next six months amid high inflation and rising borrowing costs.

The index S&P 500 it fell 0.16%, to 3,957.63 units; the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.01% to 33,852.53; and the Nasdaq Composite it fell 0.59% to 10,983.78 units.

The energy sector index S&P 500 rose 1.3 percent, while oil prices gained on expectations of a loosening of tight oil controls. China against Covid-19 were later offset by concerns that OPEC+ would keep its production unchanged at its next meeting.

Volume on US exchanges was relatively low, with 9.6 billion shares traded, compared with an average of 11.2 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions.

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