Wall Street registers in 2022 its biggest annual fall since 2008

Las us stocks closed the last trading session of 2022 lower on Friday, ending a year of heavy losses marked by aggressive interest rate hikes to curb inflation, the war between Russia and Ukraine, fears of recession and the growing concern about Covid-19 cases in China.

The three main indices of Wall Street posted their first annual decline since 2018 as an era of loose monetary policy ended with the Federal Reserve (Fed) American taking the fastest pace of rate hikes since the 1980s.

This also pushed the indices to their biggest annual losses since the 2008 financial crisis, driven largely by growth stocks, as the Fed’s rate hikes pushed up US Treasury yields and made stocks less attractive.

the main index Dow Jones ended the year at the level of 33,147.28 units, with a loss of 3,191.02 points or 8.78%, while the S&P 500with 3,839.50 units, yielded 926.68 points or 19.44%, and the Nasdaq technology, with 10,466.48 points, lost 5,178.49 points or 33.10 percent.

“The main macroeconomic reasons were due to a combination of events,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research.

“The supply chain problems that started in 2020, the spike in inflation, and the Federal Reserve’s delay in starting its rate-tightening program in an attempt to contain inflation.”

He also mentioned economic indicators pointing to a recession, geopolitical tensions such as the Ukraine war, along with rising Covid cases in China and also its tense relations with Taiwan.

Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc, Microsoft Corp, Nvidia Corp, Amazon.com Inc, Tesla Inc are among the worst drags on the growth rate S&P 500with falls of between 28% and 66% in 2022.

The growth rate of the S&P 500 It has fallen about 30.5% this year, while the value index is down 7.7%, with investors preferring high-dividend-yielding sectors with consistent earnings, such as energy.

Ten of the 11 sector indices of the S&P they fell on Friday, led by real estate and public services.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the last day of 2022 with a fall of 73.55 points, or 0.22%, to 33,147.25 units; Meanwhile he S&P 500 it was down 9.78 points, or 0.25%, to 3,839.5. The Nasdaq Composite it lost 11.61 points, or 0.11%, to 10,466.48.

Attention has shifted to the outlook for corporate profits for 2023, with growing concern about the likelihood of a recession.

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