The New York Stock Exchange ended slightly lower yesterday, after a speech by the Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell, in which he was willing to make more aggressive adjustments to the benchmark interest rate.

In addition, the oil market had a strong rally, with crude oil prices gaining more than 7%.

The results showed the Dow Jones index, which last week had its best performance since the end of 2020, down 0.58% to 34,552.99 units.

While the technological Nasdaq lost 0.40% to 13,838.46 points, and the expanded S&P 500 index lost a marginal 0.04% to 4,461.18 units.

The Fed could raise rates “more aggressively” in 2022 if deemed necessary, Powell said, after the Fed raised its guideline rates for the first time since 2018 to fight inflation, which hit a 40-year high. .

Inflation marked 7.9% to 12 months last February, according to the CPI index of the Department of Commerce. The Fed prefers to be governed by the PCE index that accounts for 6.1% at 12 months in January.

Categorized in: