A fresh tumble on US equity markets on Friday night left all three benchmark indices nursing weekly losses of over >4% as brief optimism aorund the possibility of the Federal Reserve potentially slowing the pace of interest rate hikes gave way to fresh trade-related concerns - Dow down -559-points or -2.24%, with all 30 component stocks trading lower. The broader S&P500 shed -2.33%, with ten of the eleven primary sectors losing ground. Utilities (up +0.40%) was the only sector to advance. It was just the fourth time that the S&P500 has fallen over >2% on a Friday in December since the index began trading in 1993. The latest falls pushed both the Dow and S&P500 back into negative territory for the year. The NASDAQ -3.05%., with Apple Inc down -3.6% and erasing its gains for the year. Morgan Stanley cut their price target on Apple to US$236 per share from US$253 previously, citing a weak market in China for iPhones because people are taking increasingly more time to replace their old phones. Facebook Inc (down -1.58%) disclosed in a filing late last Friday (7 December) with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it is increasing its buyback programme by US$9B Google parent Alphabet Inc fell -3.01%, with Google chief executive Sundar Pichai expected to testify before the US judiciary committee in Washington on Tuesday night AEDT (11 December). For the week, the Dow fell -4.5%, S&P500 -4.6% and Nasdaq -4.9%. It was the biggest weekly percentage decline for all three benchmarks since March, while also marking the worst start to a December since 2008 (source: Dow Jones Market Data). The small capitalisation Russell 2000 Index fell -5.6% last week.
