US equity markets settled in the red after a volatile session as investors continued to ponder the Federal Reserve’s latest observations and as the Information Technology sector (down -0.84%) was the subject of fresh selling - Dow down -130-points or -0.47%, snapping a four session winning streak but paring an earlier loss of as much as -385-points. The broader S&P500 shed -0.84%, with Real Estate (down -2.19% leading eight of the eleven primary sectors lower. Materials (up +0.76%), Industrials (+0.23%) and Energy (+0.21%) were the only primary sectors to advance. General Electric Co gained +4.4% to a two month high of US$7.05 on big trading volume (259.1M shares versus the daily average of 82.6M) as Chief Executive Larry Culp said he expected cash flow to be positive in the second half of the year. Ford Motor Co gained +3.70% as it said it had begun production of the new generation F-150 pickup truck at its Michigan facility. The technology-centric NASDAQ dropped -1.27%, briefly dipping back into correction territory (i.e. down -10% from its most recent peak). Facebook Inc and Amazon.com Inc fell -3.3% and -2.25%, respectively. Netflix Inc closed -2.82% lower. Google parent Alphabet Inc dropped -1.67%, while Apple Inc (-1.6%) and Microsoft Corp (-1.04%) were both down at least 1%. For September, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft and Apple are all down at least 10%. Tonight’s session is ‘quadruple witching’, the simultaneous expiry of market index futures, market index options, stock options and stock futures.
