Week Of Market Uncertainty Ends With Heavy Losses

This has been a wild week in the stock market, capped by a heavy selloff today.

Heading into the Monday stock market session, the market found itself trading negative before the opening bell. Selling pressure was fairly constant and pushed both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to continually make new lows on the day. The selling brought the market down to its “mean,” or the 21-day exponential moving average. Both the Nasdaq and the S&P finished the day fairly negative.

On Tuesday, in the middle of a push downward by the bears, economic data from the U.S. Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) was released. The PMI measures the prevailing direction of economic trends in manufacturing. The data provided a positive reaction that gave the market life. This news was enough momentum to carry the market to new highs in both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq.

Wednesday was a very choppy and non-directional day for the market. The contained  action could be explained by the anticipation of the annual Federal Reserve (Fed) symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo., to close the week. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell was set to deliver a speech at 9 a.m. Central on Friday. This action was carried over into Thursday with Friday being the big day.

Friday was the day the market anxiously awaited. The whole market was waiting on the Powell speech and did he deliver.

Powell shook up the market in a wild way when he took the stage. Powell acknowledged the economic slowdown and made it clear there will be pain when it comes to combating inflation. The bears took this chance to take full advantage of the event and took control of the market with force. The remaining hours of the week were spent with strong selling pressure.

This week we saw Nvidia reporting less than expected revenues in its earnings report, Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) split stock 3-to-1, and Powell shook up the market by delivering a speech acknowledging the economy is slowing.

Market participants can expect more pain as the Fed attempts to correct adverse effects of 40-year high inflation.