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After all 3 major U.S. indices recorded gains on Friday as President Trump was inaugurated, Monday has given way to a slight hangover from the celebrations with the Nasdaq, S&P and Dow Jones Industrial Average all opening down. Just over an hour into the session the DJIA is down 0.24%, the S&P 500 0.26% and the Nasdaq 0.26%. All three have followed a similar pattern of opening down, gains over the initial 15-20 minutes of trading and a subsequent drop.
Fast food giant McDonalds released its Q4 results pre-market this morning. Despite a 1% decline in Q4 profits as the result of refranchising, both profits and revenues came in ahead of forecasts. Despite that the company’s share price is currently 0.87% down.
European indices are down across the board today, helping to set the scene for Wall Street’s muted start to the week. Nonetheless, today’s downward slide can be considered relatively normal against the backdrop of the strong gains that equities markets and the U.S. indices have seen since Trump’s shock November election. The rally was fueled on hopes that Trump’s administration would prove to be aggressively pro-growth with infrastructure spending and de-regulation taking centre stage. Markets are now naturally waiting to see concrete manifestation of those hopes before making a decision on whether or not to push ahead with a risk-on mentality. Profit taking as investors look to lock in gains made early this year is also a factor at present.
Google-parent Alphabet and Microsoft are two of the big sets of results to be posted this week.
