道琼斯指数因对美国经济的担忧而下跌近 1,000 点
【中美创新时报2024 年 8 月 5 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）因担心美国经济，周一道琼斯指数下跌 860 点，日本股市遭遇 1987 年以来最严重崩盘。美联社记者斯坦·乔（Stan Choe）对此作了下述报道。
周一，华尔街几乎所有股票都在下跌，因为对美国经济放缓的担忧加剧，并引发全球金融市场的另一场抛售。
标准普尔 500 指数午盘下跌 2.4%，有望创下 2022 年以来最糟糕的一天。截至美国东部时间上午 11:40，道琼斯工业平均指数下跌 864 点，跌幅 2.2%，纳斯达克综合指数下跌 2.7%。
这些下跌只是上周开始的全球抛售中的最新一次。日本日经 225 指数周一开盘暴跌 12.4%，创下 1987 年黑色星期一崩盘以来的最大单日跌幅。
这是东京交易员首次有机会对周五的报告做出反应，该报告显示美国雇主上个月的招聘放缓幅度远超经济学家的预期。这是最新一份低于预期的美国经济数据，这一切都引发了人们的担忧，即美联储通过高利率长期过度踩下美国经济的刹车，希望抑制通胀。
专业投资者警告称，一些技术因素可能会加剧市场的波动，但损失仍然令人震惊。韩国 Kospi 指数下跌 8.8%，欧洲股市下跌逾 2%，比特币从周五的 61,000 多美元跌至 55,000 美元以下。
即使是在动荡时期以提供安全而闻名的黄金也下跌了 1%。
部分原因是交易员开始怀疑损失是否严重到美联储必须在 9 月 18 日下次决定之前召开紧急会议降息。两年期美国国债收益率与美联储的预期密切相关，早盘一度从上周五晚间的 3.88% 和 4 月份的 5% 跌至 3.70% 以下。随后，收益率回升至 3.90%。
Annex Wealth Management 首席经济学家 Brian Jacobsen 表示：“美联储可以骑着白马来大幅降息以挽救局面，但在会议间降息的理由似乎站不住脚。”“这些通常是为紧急情况准备的，比如 COVID，而 4.3% 的失业率似乎并不像紧急情况。”
美国经济仍在增长，经济衰退还远未确定。美联储在 2022 年 3 月开始大幅加息时，就明确表示了自己走在钢丝上：加息太激进会扼杀经济，但加息太软会让通胀更加紧张，伤害所有人。
高盛经济学家 David Mericle 认为，周五的就业报告公布后，未来 12 个月内经济衰退的可能性更高。但他仍然认为这种可能性只有 25%，高于 15%，部分原因是“数据总体看起来不错”，而且他“没有看到重大的金融失衡”。
华尔街最近的一些下跌也可能只是股市的疲软，股市今年创下了数十个历史新高，部分原因是人们对人工智能技术的狂热以及对即将到来的降息的希望。批评人士一直在说，在价格上涨速度超过企业利润后，股市看起来很贵。
IG 北美首席执行官 JJ Kinahan 表示：“市场上涨时就像爬楼梯，下跌时就像从窗户掉下去。”他将最近的担忧归咎于人们对人工智能消退的兴奋和“市场处于超前状态”。
专业投资者还指出，日本央行上周将主要利率从接近零的水平上调。此举有助于提高日元的价值，但也可能迫使交易员退出几乎不计成本在日本借入资金并将其投资到世界其他地方的交易。
周一，一份报告称美国服务业增长略强于预期，随后美国股市缩减跌幅。美国供应管理协会 (ISM) 的数据显示，艺术、娱乐和休闲行业以及住宿和餐饮服务业引领了增长。在数据好于预期后，美国国债收益率也缩减了跌幅。
不过，利润与经济实力最密切相关的公司股票因对经济放缓的担忧而大幅下跌。罗素 2000 指数中的小型公司下跌了 3.7%，进一步浇灭了该指数和其他受创市场领域的复苏势头。
更糟糕的是，随着今年大部分时间最受欢迎的交易继续瓦解，大型科技股也大幅下跌。今年，苹果、英伟达和其他几只被称为“七巨头”的科技巨头推动标准普尔 500 指数创下历史新高，尽管高利率拖累了大部分股票市场。
但上个月，科技巨头的势头出现逆转，因为投资者担心其股价过高，未来增长的预期变得难以实现。特斯拉和 Alphabet 的一系列令人失望的利润报告加剧了人们的悲观情绪，并加速了股价下跌。
周一，沃伦·巴菲特的伯克希尔哈撒韦公司披露已大幅削减了对这家 iPhone 制造商的持股，苹果股价下跌 3.2%。
芯片公司英伟达已成为华尔街人工智能热潮的典型代表，股价下跌幅度更大，达 5%。在《The Information》报道称英伟达的新人工智能芯片被推迟发布后，分析师上周末下调了该公司的利润预测。最近的抛售使 Nvidia 今年的涨幅从 6 月中旬的 170% 缩减至近 106%。
由于这七大公司是市值最大的公司，因此其股票的走势对标准普尔 500 指数和其他指数的影响更大。
企业利润、利率和经济之外的担忧也给市场带来压力。以色列与哈马斯的战争可能正在恶化，除了造成人员伤亡外，还可能导致油价大幅波动。这加剧了人们对全球潜在热点地区的担忧，而即将到来的美国大选可能会进一步扰乱局势。
华尔街一直担心 11 月出台的政策会如何影响市场，但股价的大幅波动可能会影响选举本身。
经济衰退的威胁可能会让副总统卡马拉·哈里斯 (Kamala Harris) 处于守势。但经济增长放缓也可能进一步降低通胀，迫使前总统唐纳德·特朗普从目前对高物价的关注转向制定振兴经济的方法。
美联社商业记者 Elaine Kurtenbach、Matt Ott 和 Christopher Rugaber 对此亦有贡献。
题图：8 月 2 日下午交易期间，纽约证券交易所的屏幕上显示股市数据。Michael M. Santiago/Getty
附原英文报道：
Dow drops 860 points, and Japanese stocks suffer worst crash since 1987 amid US economy worries
By Stan Choe The Associated Press,Updated August 5, 2024
Stock market numbers are displayed on a screen at the New York Stock Exchange during afternoon trading on Aug. 2 in New York City.Michael M. Santiago/Getty
NEW YORK — Nearly everything on Wall Street is tumbling Monday as fear about a slowing US economy worsens and sets off another sell-off for financial markets around the world.
The S&P 500 was down by 2.4 percent in midday trading and on track for its worst day since 2022. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was reeling by 864 points, or 2.2 percent, as of 11:40 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite slid 2.7 percent.
The drops were just the latest in a global sell-off that began last week. Japan’s Nikkei 225 helped start Monday by plunging 12.4 percent for its worst day since the Black Monday crash of 1987.
It was the first chance for traders in Tokyo to react to Friday’s report showing US employers slowed their hiring last month by much more than economists expected. That was the latest piece of data on the US economy to come in weaker than expected, and it’s all raised fear the Federal Reserve has pressed the brakes on the US economy by too much for too long through high interest rates in hopes of stifling inflation.
Professional investors cautioned that some technical factors could be amplifying the action in markets, but the losses were still neck-snapping. South Korea’s Kospi index careened 8.8 percent lower, stock markets across Europe sank more than 2 percent and bitcoin dropped below $55,000 from more than $61,000 on Friday.
Even gold, which has a reputation for offering safety during tumultuous times, slipped 1 percent.
That’s in part because traders began wondering if the damage has been so severe that the Federal Reserve will have to cut interest rates in an emergency meeting, before its next scheduled decision on Sept. 18. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which closely tracks expectations for the Fed, briefly sank below 3.70 percent during the morning from 3.88 percent late Friday and from 5 percent in April. It later recovered and pulled back to 3.90 percent.
“The Fed could ride in on a white horse to save the day with a big rate cut, but the case for an inter-meeting cut seems flimsy,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. “Those are usually reserved for emergencies, like COVID, and an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent doesn’t really seem like an emergency.”
The US economy is still growing, and a recession is far from a certainty. The Fed has been clear about the tightrope it began walking when it started hiking rates sharply in March 2022: Being too aggressive would choke the economy, but going too soft would give inflation more oxygen and hurt everyone.
Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle sees a higher chance of a recession within the next 12 months following Friday’s jobs report. But he still sees only a 25 percent probability of that, up from 15 percent, in part “because the data look fine overall” and he does not “see major financial imbalances.”
Some of Wall Street’s recent declines may also simply be air coming out of a stock market that romped to dozens of all-time highs this year, in part on a frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology and hopes for coming cuts to interest rates. Critics have been saying for a while that the stock market looked expensive after prices rose faster than corporate profits.
“Markets tend to move higher like they’re climbing stairs, and they go down like they’re falling out a window,” according to JJ Kinahan, CEO of IG North America. He chalks much of the recent worries to euphoria around AI subsiding and “a market that was ahead of itself.”
Professional investors also pointed to the Bank of Japan’s move last week to raise its main interest rate from nearly zero. Such a move helps boost the value of the Japanese yen, but it could also force traders to scramble out of deals where they borrowed money for virtually no cost in Japan and invested it elsewhere around the world.
US stocks pared their losses Monday after a report said growth for US services businesses was a touch stronger than expected. Growth was led by businesses in the arts, entertainment and recreation businesses, along with accommodations and food services, according to the Institute for Supply Management. Treasury yields also pared their drops following the better-than-expected data.
Still, stocks of companies whose profits are most closely tied to the economy’s strength took sharp losses on the fears about a slowdown. The small companies in the Russell 2000 index dropped 3.7 percent, further dousing what had been a revival for it and other beaten-down areas of the market.
Making things worse for Wall Street, Big Tech stocks also tumbled as the market’s most popular trade for much of this year continued to unravel. Apple, Nvidia and a handful of other Big Tech stocks known as the “Magnificent Seven” had propelled the S&P 500 to records this year, even as high interest rates weighed down much of the rest of the stock market.
But Big Tech’s momentum turned last month on worries investors had taken their prices too high and expectations for future growth are becoming too difficult to meet. A set of underwhelming profit reports that began with updates from Tesla and Alphabet added to the pessimism and accelerated the declines.
Apple fell 3.2 percent Monday after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway disclosed that it had slashed its ownership stake in the iPhone maker.
Nvidia, the chip company that’s become the poster child of Wall Street’s AI bonanza, fell even more, 5 percent. Analysts cut their profit forecasts over the weekend for the company after a report from The Information said Nvidia’s new AI chip is delayed. The recent selling has trimmed Nvidia’s gain for the year to nearly 106 percent from 170 percent in the middle of June.
Because the Magnificent Seven companies are the market’s biggest by market value, the movements for their stocks carry much more weight on the S&P 500 and other indexes.
Worries outside corporate profits, interest rates and the economy are also weighing on the market. The Israel-Hamas war may be worsening, which beyond its human toll could also cause sharp swings for the price of oil. That’s adding to broader worries about potential hotspots around the world, while upcoming US elections could further scramble things.
Wall Street has been concerned about how policies coming out of November could impact markets, but the sharp swings for stock prices could affect the election itself.
The threat of a recession is likely to put Vice President Kamala Harris on the defensive. But slower growth could also further reduce inflation and force former President Donald Trump to pivot from his current focus on higher prices to outlining ways to revive the economy.
AP Business Writers Elaine Kurtenbach, Matt Ott and Christopher Rugaber contributed.
