ASX braces for muted start after choppy session on Wall Street

Looking past uncertainties regarding the pace of interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve, the policies of the coming Trump administration and various hot spots of geopolitical unrest, market participants chose to focus on the strength of the United States economy.

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Wall Street’s main indexes notched double-digit gains in 2024, with the benchmark S&P 500 recording its best two-year run since 1997-98. Those gains were driven by the US Federal Reserve’s first rate cuts in 3½ years, the ongoing artificial intelligence boom and expectations of pro-business policies under the Trump administration.

The rally lost steam in the closing weeks of 2024, with the S&P 500 and the Dow marking declines for December, as markets priced in the likelihood of fewer rate cuts from the Fed this year.

The S&P and the Nasdaq have now posted five consecutive sessions in the red, their longest losing streaks since mid-April.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 151.95 points, or 0.36 per cent, to 42,392.27, the S&P 500 lost 13.08 points, or 0.22 per cent, to 5868.55, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 30 points, or 0.16 per cent, to 19,280.79.

Among the 11 major sectors of the S&P 500, consumer discretionary stocks were down the most, weighed by Tesla. Energy shares, buoyed by rising crude prices, enjoyed the largest percentage gains.

Apple lost 2.6 per cent as the iPhone maker offered rare discounts in China to compete against domestic rivals. Crypto stocks such as Coinbase, MicroStrategy and MARA Holdings gained between 2.6 per cent and 3.6 per cent, tracking rising Bitcoin prices.

Reuters