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Stock trader in Frankfurt: Stock exchanges suffer from interest rate increases
Photo: Arne Dedert / dpa
Drastic interest rate hikes by several central banks are causing prices on the stock exchanges to collapse worldwide.
The leading American index Dow Jones Industrial lost 2.2 percent in early trading, falling below the 30,000 point mark to its lowest level since the beginning of 2021. The market-wide S&P 500 lost 2.64 percent to 3690 points.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 fell 2.93 percent to 11,254 points.
The reason was apparently the key rate increases in the USA, Hong Kong, England and Switzerland.
The currency watchdogs are trying to curb global inflation, but are also raising fears of a recession.
In addition, shares become comparatively less attractive in phases of rising interest rates because new investment opportunities open up for investors.
Jerome Powell, head of the US Federal Reserve, emphasized on Wednesday evening that such a high rate hike was "naturally unusual" and not usual.
At the same time, he had announced another increase of 0.5 or 0.75 points for the end of July.
Dax is approaching 13,000 points
The developments from the United States were also felt in Germany on Thursday.
The German leading index Dax fell by almost three percent at times and approached the lower limit of 13,000 points.
The European Central Bank (ECB) also announced an increase in interest rates last week.
They are expected to increase by 0.25 percentage points in July.
It would be the first increase in more than a decade.
With their interest rate increases, the central banks want to curb the demand for credit and thus fight inflation.
But they are also fueling fears of an economic slump.
The hardest hit are companies that have benefited most from low interest rates in recent years, including high-growth tech stocks.
In the euro zone, there is the additional problem that the expectation of rising interest rates is causing the financing costs of individual countries to shoot up particularly sharply.
The Council of the ECB had therefore already decided on measures to counteract this in an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday.
The general fears of recession were reflected on Thursday, among other things, in falling commodity prices.
Brent oil from the North Sea and the industrial metal copper both fell by around 1.5 percent to $116.85 a barrel (159 liters) and $9079 a ton, respectively.
rai/dpa
