Wall Street falls on Yellen and Powell testimonies

{"text":[[{"start":13.84,"text":"US equities slid on Tuesday as the country’s top economic policymakers sat before Congress to detail their response to the coronavirus pandemic, with companies hard-hit by the crisis leading the declines. "}],[{"start":27.78,"text":"Wall Street’s blue-chip S&P 500 index declined 0.8 per cent while the technology-focused Nasdaq Composite lost 1.1 per cent. "},{"start":38.259,"text":"The Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks slumped 3.6 per cent, its worst day in a month. "}],[{"start":45.95,"text":"The declines, which hit the airline and leisure industries acutely, followed news of an intensifying coronavirus crisis in continental Europe. "},{"start":55.679,"text":"German lawmakers agreed to extend its months-long lockdown to April 18 after a surge in infections on Tuesday. "}],[{"start":64.21000000000001,"text":"“Some of the concern today was around new lockdowns in Europe,” said Ralph Bassett, the head of North American equities at Aberdeen Standard Investments. "},{"start":73.927,"text":"“The concern is you will have inflation but perhaps not with commensurate global growth on the other side. ”"}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":81.2,"text":"The drop in global stocks accompanied testimony from Janet Yellen, US Treasury secretary, before the House of Representatives financial services committee, where she defended the Biden administration’s stimulus plans. "},{"start":94.94200000000001,"text":"She was joined by Jay Powell, Federal Reserve chair, who said that he believed an uptick in inflation would be “neither particularly large nor persistent”. "}],[{"start":105.18,"text":"They spoke on the first anniversary of the point at which central bank intervention succeeded in stopping a sell-off sparked by the outbreak of coronavirus from cascading through financial markets. "}],[{"start":117.18,"text":"“It’s going to be more of the same,” said Fahad Kamal, chief investment officer at Kleinwort Hambros, Société Générale’s private banking and wealth management division. "},{"start":128.534,"text":"“I think the Fed is going to remain super accommodative. ”"}],[{"start":132.78,"text":"Yellen said that, with the passing of President Joe Biden’s $1.9tn stimulus plan, she regarded it as possible that the US would return to “full employment” in 2022. "},{"start":145.334,"text":"Powell echoed those remarks, saying that “the recovery has progressed more quickly than generally expected and looks to be strengthening”. "}],[{"start":154.16,"text":"The yield on the US 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to price, fell 0.07 percentage points to 1.62 per cent, having peaked close to 1.75 per cent last week, a 14-month high. "}],[{"start":170.79,"text":"“The Fed’s been pretty clear on where they want to be, I don’t think we’ll hear anything particularly new. "},{"start":177.119,"text":"We do expect inflation to increase, but it will fall back down again,” said Paul Flood, portfolio manager at Newton Investment Management. "}],[{"start":186.39,"text":"In Europe, the region-wide Stoxx 600 index closed down 0.2 per cent, while the UK’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.4 per cent and Germany’s Xetra Dax ended the session little changed. "}],[{"start":201.29,"text":"“Europe is having headwinds of a different kind,” said Kamal, noting that vaccination programmes in many countries were going at a “really poor” pace “especially when compared to the US and UK”. "},{"start":213.469,"text":"However, Europe was likely to report growth in the second half of the year, with its reopening of economies generating “procyclical tailwinds”, he added. "}],[{"start":223.76,"text":"Oil prices fell on Tuesday. "},{"start":226.427,"text":"Brent crude, the international benchmark, dropped 5.9 per cent to $60.79 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, slipped 6.2 per cent to $57.76 a barrel. "}],[{"start":243.54,"text":"In Asia, China’s CSI 300 index and South Korea’s Kospi closed 1 per cent lower and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.3 per cent. "}],[{"start":253.45999999999998,"text":""}]],"url":"https://creatives.ftacademy.cn/album/001091901-1616555855.mp3"}