The US stock markets started trading predominantly lower on Wednesday. Investors in New York await the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision, which comes later in the day.
The US umbrella of central banks is not expected to torment key interest rates. Still, markets are interested in the Fed’s future outlook for the US economy and a possible timeline for an interest rate hike.
Tech companies on Wall Street were under pressure again, and the Nasdaq in particular suffered. The tech exchange was 1.3 percent lower at 13,294 points after a few minutes of trading. The S&P 500 also fell by 0.5 percent to 3944 points. The Dow Jones index did rise, however, by 0.3 percent. That indicator reached a level of 32,910 points.
Uber was in the spotlight among the companies. The company behind the same name’s taxi app gives its drivers in Great Britain more rights and guarantees them a minimum wage. Analysts think this could be detrimental to Uber’s profitability, and the stock fell 2.8 percent.
The Chinese web store Alibaba received disappointing news. The company’s browser was identified by the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV as bad for consumers and disappeared from all kinds of online stores. In addition, competitor Pinduoduo reported having more users than Alibaba, which nevertheless rose 0.3 percent. Pinduoduo, which also came up with figures, recorded a minus of 8.3 percent.
Amazon will also provide a healthcare service that allows its own staff to visit a doctor remotely to other companies. This is already happening on a small scale near its home base in Seattle, but Amazon plans to provide the service to more companies this summer. Amazon fell 0.5 percent.
Figures on the US housing market showed a mixed picture. The number of homes for which construction started last month turned out to be lower than expected, but the figures on the number of building permits issued were better than expected. Construction companies such as Toll Brothers and DR Horton lost more than 1 percent.
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