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S&P 500 Cuts Losses but Ends Lower as Ukraine-Russia Talks End in Stalemate -Breaking

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© Reuters.

 By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com — The S&P 500 cut losses to end the day above session lows Thursday, amid signs of dip-buying activity after hopes of a diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict were dashed as both sides failed to find a breakthrough in talks on a ceasefire. 

However, the drop was less than 1%. They fell 0.3% (or 112 points), and the dropped 1%.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said there was “no progress” on discussions concerning a ceasefire, and said that demands from his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov would amount to a surrender for Ukraine, something the country isn’t prepared to do. 

Russia does not have the ability to end hostilities at this moment. They want a surrender from Ukraine. This is not what they’re going to get,” Kuleba said following a sit down with Russia’s Lavrov.

Many had hoped that Ukraine’s softer stance on seeking to join the NATO military alliance – in the days leading up to the meeting – would pave the path toward a diplomatic resolution.

The absence of any breakthrough has renewed concerns that key commodities like oil, gas and wheat — which are key exports to Russia and Ukraine — would remain high and will keep inflation rising longer.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the IMF expects to cut its global growth estimate next month owing to the economic set back sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

It rose 0.8% in February. That pushes inflation to 7.9% for the year. This is the largest annual increase since 1981.

“The risk is that the inflation we are enduring now could become more entrenched, as it did in the 1970s. That is why the Fed is so wedded to raising rates starting in March,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton.

Technology dropped nearly 3% after investors left big tech. Amazon (NASDAQ:), however, fought the trend by announcing a $10billion share buyback program as well as a 20% stock split.

The tech sector was also affected by falling semiconductor stocks due to concerns about the Russia-Ukraine conflict causing supply issues for the chip industry.

As banks became more concerned about rising concerns over red-hot inflation, slow economic growth and the possibility of recession, they lost ground on their gains.

U.S. Bancorp was down sharply, as were Synchrony Financial (NYSE 🙂 and Bank of New York Mellon. The latter dropped more than 4% after it revealed that Thomas P. Gibbons would retire as Chief Executive on August 31.

“The headwinds for banks is clearly the Russia exposure, but it’s also the flattening in the yield curve,” Melissa Brown, managing director of applied research at Qontigo, an index and analytics provider, said in an interview with Investing.com on Thursday. “Higher rates are fine for banks as long as short term rates are lower, but if that’s not the case, that’s going to hurt banks.”

Energy stocks were one of few green sectors, even though oil prices erased intraday gains.

Crowdstrike drew the most attention from investors, but overall earnings were positive.

Crowdstrike NASDAQ: has released an optimistic outlook for the whole-year, following quarterly results which exceeded Wall Street expectations. It reported top and bottom line results. This sent the shares of the company more than 12% higher.

Asana (NYSE) reported also better-than expected quarterly results. The guidance was unexpectedly positive, however the prospects for greater growth are likely to be costly. As the company increases investment. Its shares dropped more than 22%.

“The product/sales expansion is coming at the expense of aggressive investment, which we expect investors to look at cautiously given the challenging macro/geopolitical environment,” Oppenheimer said as it cut price target on the stock to $85 from $100 amid valuation concerns.

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