US equity markets retreated, tumbling into the close after the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s December monetary policy meeting suggested investors need to gear up for potentially tighter U.S. monetary policy and prompted a strong rotation out of technology stocks and into businesses more tightly linked to the economic recovery - Dow down -393-points or -1.07% after hitting a fresh record intra-day high (36,952.65) earlier in the session, logging its first decline of 2022. Salesforce.Com Inc dropped -8.28% following a downgrade from investment bank UBS. The broader S&P500 shed -1.94% - the index’s worst daily decline since 26 November last year - with Real Estate (down -3.22%) and Information Technology (-3.13%) both falling over >3% to lead all eleven primary sectors lower. The Nasdaq dropped -3.34%, recording the biggest single session loss for the technology-centric index since 25 February last year. Google parent Alphabet Inc closed down 4.6% at US$2,755.50, off more than >7.6% from its 18 November closing high of US$2,996.77. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 fell -3.30%.
