Stock market on Wednesday
Major US stock exchanges are down on Wednesday amid the first results of the midterm elections for the US Congress. This is evidenced by data from the New York Stock Exchange.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 276.82 points (0.83%) to 32,884.01 after trading opened. The S&P 500 index loses 34.49 points (0.90%) to 3,793.62 points. The Nasdaq electronic exchange index falls 123.52 points (1.16%) to 10,492.52 points.
News Corp (NASDAQ: NWS) is down 5%. The media company's net income declined 80% in the past quarter, due in part to weak results from its book publishing business.
AMC Entertainment (NYSE: AMC) shares are down 7.4%. The cinema chain operator reported a net loss for the twelfth consecutive quarter, although its July-September revenue beat analysts' expectations.
Shale producer Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY) quadrupled its net profit in the third quarter, with revenue rising more than expected. Meanwhile, adjusted earnings were worse than the consensus forecast, causing the company's shares to fall 4.6%.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is down 0.8%. Elon Musk reported selling about 19.5 million shares of the company he founded for a total of about $4 billion in the past three trading days. He began selling off the securities a week after closing the deal to buy Twitter (NYSE: TWTR).
Lucid Group (NASDAQ: LCID) Inc. increased its third-quarter net loss more than market forecasts and announced a new share offering worth about $1.5 billion. The company's stock price plunged more than 13%.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) gained 6.8 percent. The company officially announced that it was laying off more than 13,000 employees, or 11% of its workforce, as part of a cost-cutting program. At the same time, it lowered its spending forecast for 2023 to $94-100 billion from the previously expected $96-101 billion.
It is worth noting that the value of bitcoin is down 15.8%, falling below the $17,000 per coin mark for the first time since November 2020, trading data shows.
On 8 November midterm elections were held in the USA. The results were more moderate than expected for the Republicans. The Democrats could retain control of the Congressional Senate. At the same time, the Democrats' economic policy has not been successful over the last year. Inflation is at its highest level in 40 years and the risk of recession in 2023 remains.