US equities staged a remarkable bounce back on Mon. The Dow was down over 1,000 points before finishing in positive territory. The heavy selloff was due to jitters about what policymakers at the Fed might say about rate hikes when they finished their Jan meeting on Wed. Also, NATO and Russia are increasing their troop levels in areas that border the Ukraine.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished trading 99.13 pts, or 0.29% higher to close at 34,364.50. The S&P 500 index rose 0.28%, after being down by as much as 4% on the day. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.63%. The small cap Russell 2000 was the biggest gainer of all, jumping 2.29%.
The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), the so-called market fear gauge, hit 38.94 on Mon, its highest intraday reading since Oct 2020. It closed at 29.90, but was still up 3.6 points from Fri’s closing level.
Retailer Kohl’s (KSS US, +36.02%) shares jumped on Mon, after Bloomberg News reported that the department store is fielding interest from two suitors amid pressure from activist investors.
Peloton Interactive (PTON US, +9.79%) has received a letter from an activist investor demanding that it fire its CEO and pursue a sale.
IBM (IBM US, -0.41%) rose 2.47% in after-hours trade, after reporting revenue that beat analysts’ estimates, buoyed by strong demand in the software unit.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note notched up 1.25 basis points (bps) to 1.7706%. The 2-year Treasury, which is more sensitive to Fed rate decisions, saw its yield slip to 0.9628% from above 1%. The rebound of equity markets coincided with a successful US$54b 2-year Treasury auction.
The most actively traded US gold futures (Feb) contracts settled up $9.90, or 0.5%, at US$1,841.70/oz. March silver, which is the most actively traded silver futures, fell 52 cents, or 2.1%, to end at US$23.800/oz.
Bitcoin (XBTUSD) rebounded to close up 4.14% at US$36,828.36, after briefly dropping below $33,000 on Mon.
The ICE dollar index (DXY), which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of currencies, rose 0.29% to 95.918.
Crude oil prices fell, despite plenty of worrying news about events in Ukraine. The front-month Brent and WTI futures closed down $1.62 at US$86.27/bbl and $1.83 at US$83.31/bbl respectively.
European equity markets finished lower on Mon. The UK FTSE lost 2.63%, France's CAC 40 fell 3.97%, while the German DAX retreated 3.80%.
Bucking the trend, Unilever (ULVR LN, +7.31%) shares soared, gaining the most since Jul 2020 after Nelson Peltz built a stake in the maker of Dove soap, putting pressure on CEO Alan Jope to accelerate a revamp.