Shares on Wall Street fell sharply on Thur. Stocks had been modestly lower for most of the session before selling gained steam in the final hour. There was no specific news event that pushed equities into the red. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 638.11 pts, or 1.94%, to close at 32,272.79. The broader S&P 500 index fell 2.38%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite retreated 2.75%. The small cap Russell 2000 dropped 2.12%.
Meta (META US, -6.41%) changed its ticker to "META" from "FB" on Thur.
DocuSign (DOCU US, -3.02%) shares shed 23.41% in after-hours trade on Thur. The e-signature firm reported adjusted 1QFY23 earnings that missed expectations and also cut its full-year billings forecast.
Bucking the trend, shares of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD US, -3.02%) rose 1.21% in after-hours trade. AMD expects revenue to grow 20% annually over the next three to four years as it attempts to take more market share from Intel (INTC US, -2.94%).
The NY-listed shares of Alibaba (BABA US, -8.13%) fell after the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) denied a Bloomberg report that it had started early-stage talks on reviving the IPO of Jack Ma's Ant Group.
The European Central Bank (ECB) confirmed its plan to hike interest rates in Jul rates by 25 basis points (bps) at its Jul meeting and possibly again in Sep. Market mavens on Wall Street remain critical of the ECB. They believe it needs to move more quickly to address record inflation.
European equities tumbled the most in three weeks on Thur. The UK FTSE lost 1.54%, France's CAC 40 fell 1.4%, while the German DAX retreated 1.71%.
The euro down 0.9% to US$1.0618. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note notched up 2.04 basis points (bps) to 3.0418%, while the yield on the 2-year Treasuries rose 3.74 bps to 2.8113%. The yield on 10-year German government bonds jumped 7.7 bps to 1.430%.
The front-month Brent and WTI futures closed down 51 cents at US$123.07/bbl and 60 cents at US$121.51/bbl respectively.
The ICE dollar index (DXY), which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of currencies, rose 0.66% to 103.223.
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