That said, some big earnings reports from some of the biggest U.S. tech firms continue to roll in, meaning there could be big price swings in individual stocks and sectors under the hood of the broader indices.
This was in evidence on Wednesday on Wall Street. The Nasdaq fell only 0.1% and ‘big tech‘ fell less than 1% but that masked huge moves in some shares which added or wiped out tens of billions of dollars of market cap. Microsoft fell 4%, Snap plunged 15%, while Alphabet surged 5.5%.
Shares in Meta jumped 7% in after hours trade after the Facebook owner reported stronger-than-expected Q2 revenues and forecast strong Q3 revenues.
Investors in Asia will also wake up to the 11th U.S. interest rate hike since the Fed began hiking rates last year – and the highest rates in 22 years – and a fairly balanced policy outlook for the coming months from Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
He left the door open to further tightening but also said the Fed could stay on hold if the data warranted and stressed that decisions will be made on a meeting by meeting basis. His measured remarks helped ensure a fairly subdued day on Wall Street.
