Wall Street dragged down by growth stocks on last trading day of torrid year

Wall Street’s main indexes were dragged lower by battered growth stocks on the final trading day of a roller-coaster year marked by aggressive interest-rate hikes to curb inflation, the Russia-Ukraine war and recession fears.

Most rate-sensitive technology and growth stocks such as Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet Inc and Meta Platforms fell between 1.5% and 1.8% on Friday, as US Treasury yields rose.

The declines made communication services, technology and the retail index the top decliners among major S&P 500 sectors, down more than 1.2% each.

Wall Street’s three main indexes were set for their first annual drop after three straight years of gains as the Federal Reserve’s fastest pace of increase to borrowing costs since the 1980s to tame soaring prices marked an end to the era of easy money.

Investors avoided riskier bets and fled to safer assets such as the US dollar, pushing down the benchmark S&P 20% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq nearly 34% this year.

Both indexes were on course for their biggest yearly declines since the 2008 financial crisis.

Growth stocks have been under pressure from rising yields for much of 2022 and have underperformed their economically-linked value peers in a reversal of a trend that has lasted for much of the past decade.

The S&P 500 growth index is down about 30% this year while the value index has dropped 7.9%, with investors preferring high dividend-yielding sectors with steady earnings such as energy.

The tech sector has shed 29.8% this year and is among the worst-performing of the major S&P 500 sectors in 2022.

Focus has now shifted to the outlook for corporate earnings in 2023 as investors grow increasingly concerned about the likelihood of a sharp economic downturn due to the rate hikes.

“The economy is going to go south because we’ve raised rates too much. So, by the time we’re a few weeks (into 2023), we’re going to start to get some earnings warnings,” said Dennis Dick, market structure analyst and trader at Triple D Trading.

“(The) back half of 2023 is going to be better because I believe the Fed will stop raising interest rates. And I also believe that they will talk about lowering interest rates.”

Wall Street’s main indexes closed higher on Thursday after unemployment data signaled the Fed’s policy tightening was starting to take a toll on the U.S. labor market.

Still, signs of resilience in the American economy have fueled concerns that the rates could stay higher for longer though easing inflationary pressures have kept alive hopes that the Fed could dial down the size of its hikes.

Money market participants see 65% odds of a 25-basis-point hike in the Fed’s February meeting, with rates expected to peak at 4.97% by the middle of next year.

At 9:57 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 260.27 points, or 0.78%, at 32,960.53, the S&P 500 was down 36.61 points, or 0.95%, at 3,812.67, and the Nasdaq was down 129.85 points, or 1.24%, at 10,348.24.

US-listed shares of Shaw Communications Inc jumped 9.8% after Canada’s antitrust tribunal approved rival Rogers Communications Inc’s $20 billion ($14.77 billion) bid for the telecom company.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 4.48-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and for a 2.75-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded no new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 29 new highs and 45 new lows.