Big tech getting crushed in jittery day for stocks: markets wrap

Revered by investors during the pandemic for their solid balance-sheets, big-tech companies led a selloff on Tuesday. A record jump in producer prices added more pressure on the Fed to accelerate its tapering of asset purchases and begin lifting rates next year. While officials have given no signals they would rush to tighten policy, a hasty shift to tame inflation is seen as the biggest downside risk for equities in 2022, according to an informal Bloomberg News survey of fund managers.

Comments:

• “Anytime there’s a risk of easy money being taken away, that will result in some of these very expensive areas of the market to pull back,” said Megan Horneman, director of portfolio strategy at Verdence Capital Advisors.
• “The pressure on the Fed to pick up the pace of tightening is only mounting. With higher prices permeating the marketplace, we could see a snowball effect when it comes to inflation challenges as more suppliers justify higher prices and more consumers begin to close their wallets,” said Mike Loewengart, managing director of investment strategy at E*Trade Financial.
• “The inflation trajectory remains worrisome. While we believe that price pressures will abate next year, the Fed is doing the prudent thing by tapering faster, so that it is well-positioned to hike rates if needed,” said Win Thin, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman.

A Goldman Sachs Group Inc. basket of the 50 most-shorted stocks has plummeted back into a bear market for the first time since June, ringing up gains for traders who sell shares they’d borrowed in hopes of buying them back at lower prices. The renewed selloff in the more speculative corners of the market adds more evidence of a waning appetite to take risks as a new variant of the coronavirus spreads and the Fed zeroes in on fighting inflation.

Corporate highlights:

• Elon Musk made more headway toward his pledge to sell 10% of his Tesla Inc. stake, and it may have cost the carmaker its $1 trillion valuation.
• Boeing Co. received 109 gross orders for 737 Max airliners last month, bringing its sales tally for the narrow-body jets to 692 this year, according to the planemaker’s website.
• 3M Co. agreed to separate its food-safety business and join it with Neogen Corp. in a deal that would value the combined company at about $9.3 billion.

Elsewhere, oil fell as the International Energy Agency said the global market has returned to surplus with the omicron variant curbing international travel.

Here are some key events this week:

• China releases November industrial output, retail sales data, Wednesday.
• Fed rate decision, Wednesday.
• U.S. business inventories, retail sales, empire manufacturing, Wednesday.
• BOE rate decision, Thursday.
• ECB rate decision, Thursday.
• U.S. housing starts, initial jobless claims, industrial production, Thursday.
• BOJ monetary policy decision, Friday.
• S&P Dow Jones Indices quarterly rebalance effective after markets close, Friday.
• “Quadruple witching” day in the U.S. market, when options and futures on indexes and equities expire, Friday.