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Equity Alert: S&P 500 hits fresh high; futures dn after Powell investigation

MUMBAI---0748 IST--Indices in the US ended higher Friday, with the S&P 500 reaching a fresh new high of 6978.36 points. This high came after the release of the December jobs report. Futures on Wall Street fell late Sunday after reports said the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

 

Data showed that US non-farm payrolls increased by 50,000, below the 73,000 increase estimated by economists polled by Dow Jones, according to a report from CNBC. Even though the data was weaker than expected, it showed that the country's economy is still persevering with the unemployment rate inching down to 4.4% against an estimation of 4.5% by economists. Investors saw this as a sign that the economy may improve soon, according to CNBC. The December data was the first since October that was not affected by the record government shutdown, with the October data not released and the one for November being delayed, CNBC said. 

 

Mortgage lenders rose after US President Donald Trump said he ordered his representatives to acquire mortgage bonds worth $200 billion to bring down housing costs, according to a Reuters report. Shares of Loandepot jumped over 19% while those of Opendoor Technologies and Rocket Companies rose over 13% and nearly 10%, respectively. Among other stocks, shares of General Motors fell over 2?ter the company said it would take a charge of $6 billion to undo some of the investments it made in the electric-vehicle segment, Reuters said. 

 

The US Supreme Court on Friday said it would not issue a ruling on the legality of Trump's tariffs, leaving investors waiting for clarity on the issue. Investors expect higher-than-usual volatility if the courts decide to strike down Trump's tariffs, a Reuters report said. 

 

Meanwhile, futures on the Wall Street fell after US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he was under criminal investigation, according to a report from CNBC-TV18. In an post on the Federal Reserve's official handle on X, Powell claimed that the investigation was a result of the central bank making their decisions on interest rates based on their "best assessment of what will serve the public," rather than following Trump's preferences, CNBC-TV18 said. "On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June," Powell was quoted as saying by CNBC-TV18. The Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 200 points and those of S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell 30 and 150 points respectively, the report said. 

 

 

Following are the closing levels of US indices Friday:  

 

Index	Level	Change in %
S&P 500	6966.28	0.65
NASDAQ Composite	23671.35	0.81
Dow Jones Industrial Average	49504.07	0.48

 

(Akshat Saksena)

 

US$1 = INR 90.16

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Edited by Tanima Banerjee

 

All prices from National Stock Exchange, unless otherwise specified.

All percentage changes for share prices are rounded off to the nearest whole number; percentage changes for index values are rounded off to one decimal place.

All times are Indian Standard Time.

 

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