Stock market today: Dow ends higher, but weekly losses mount as Fed fears bite

By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com -- The Dow ended higher Friday, but that wasn't enough to prevent a third weekly loss as growth stocks including tech were wounded by surging Treasury yields on fears of a more aggressive Federal Reserve rate hikes as signs of a stronger economy and sticky inflation persist. 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.39%, or 129 points, the Nasdaq was down 0.6%, and the S&P 500 fell 0.28%.

Big tech remained under pressure as economic data including Wednesday’s hot wholesale inflation report stoked fears that the Fed’s rate-hike path rate has widened.

"In light of the stronger growth and firmer inflation news, we are adding another 25-basis point rate hike to our Fed forecast," Goldman Sachs said in a note.

Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) closed in the red, while Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) ended the day just above the flat line.

"The recent market rally off the lows has certainly been impressive, but I think excessive," Chief Market Strategist David Keller at StockCharts told Investing.com's Yasin Ebrahim in an interview on Wednesday. "I think that retracement period is what we start to process here, going into the middle of the year, Keller added. 

The rotation into growth sectors including tech, which helped the broader market rack up an impressive start to the year, is likely to lose further momentum from higher rates and a stronger dollar.

"From a technical perspective, if you buy into the growth story, and think about riding tech and consumer and communication names higher, you need to assume two things: Number one, you need to assume that rates are going to remain low, which I don't think is the case. And number two, you need to assume that the dollar is going to continue to weaken, which I don't think is the case either," Keller said.  

Energy also brought the pain to the broader market, falling more than 3%, paced by falling oil prices amid worries that further Fed hikes will blunt demand.

EOG Resources (NYSE:EOG), Hess (NYSE:HES), and Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL) were among the biggest decliners falling more than 5% on the day.

But the earnings front offered some reprieve as Deere&Company (NYSE:DE) rallied 7% after the farming equipment maker upgraded its annual profit guidance and reported fiscal first-quarter earnings that markedly beat Wall Street estimates.

DraftKings (NASDAQ:DKNG) also lifted guidance after its fourth-quarter results topped estimates on both the top and bottom lines, sending its shares more than 15% higher. The results show that the sports betting company’s business is “scaling to profitability,” Susquehanna said, raising its price target on the stock to $26 from $24.

DoorDash (NYSE:DASH), however, plunged more than 7% after reporting a wider-than-expected loss, though the food delivery company’s upbeat guidance suggested that it wasn’t yet seeing any material decline in the demand from pressures on the consumer.

“DASH management has not yet seen any changed consumer behavior inside its delivery marketplace and guided as such in terms of framing the GOV range for Q1 ‘23 and overall expressed optimism about sustained consumer behavior,” Goldman Sachs said as it lifted its price target on the stock to $71 from $67, though kept its neutral rating.