US equity markets continued to slide on Friday (23 September), capping a tumultuous week dominated by hawkish central bank updates that exerted particular pressure on growth stocks - Dow fell -486-points or -1.62% to 29,590.41, carving out a fresh 2022 closing low despite paring an earlier decline of as much as -826-points, and settling at its lowest level since 20 November, 2020. It also marked the first close below <30,000 since 17 June. The Dow also flirted with bear market territory, settling -19.9% below its most recent record intra-day high. Boeing Co fell -5.37% after the aerospace company reached a US$200M settlement on charges of misleading investors following two of its jetliners being involved in deadly crashes. The broader S&P500 dropped -1.72% to 3,693.23, settling just 0.7% above its 2022 closing low of 3666.77 set on 16 June. Energy (down -6.75%) led all eleven primary sectors lower on Friday (23 September), while Consumer Discretionary (-2.29%) and Materials (-2.05%) both fell over >2%. Ford Motor Co fell -3.60% after The Wall Street Journal reported the company had delayed delivery of some vehicles because it didn’t have enough blue oval badges to put on them. This followed the automaker’s warning last Monday (19 September) that it would end the third quarter with more unfinished vehicles than it had previously expected. The Nasdaq declined -1.80%. Google-parent Alphabet Inc fell -1.40% after CNBC reported that Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sundar Pichai faced heated questions from employees at an all-hands meeting last week, with staffers expressing concern about cost cuts and recent comments from Pichai regarding the need to improve productivity by 20%. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 lost -2.48%.
