On Friday, Jan. 29 at midday, the three major U.S. stock indexes extended their losses and fell collectively by more than 2%, with the Dow falling by more than 610 points.
Among the Dow components, 3M, Chevron, and Apple all fell more than 4.0%.
Among the retail favorites, GameStop (GME) is now up 80%, Koss Electronics (KOSS) is up over 100%, Express is up 37%, BlackBerry is up over 6%, AMC Theatres is up 75%, and 3B Homes is up 8%.
Overnight news
U.S. personal consumption expenditures (PCE) and related price indexes were better than expected in December, with the Fed’s favored Inflation indicator, the core PCE price index, up 1.5% year-over-year to a new high in September 2020. U.S. stock futures narrowed losses and U.S. bond yields moved higher.
U.S. contracted Home sales fell for the fourth straight month in December, highlighting the lack of momentum for further gains in the U.S. housing market, with homebuyers facing constraints from rising home prices to record highs and low supply.
The European Central Bank said it does not expect to cut interest rates right now and that bitcoin investors need to be prepared to “lose all their money.
The SEC said it is closely monitoring the recent extreme market volatility and reviewing whether actions taken by entities it regulates are putting investors at a disadvantageous low or unduly inhibiting the ability to trade certain securities to protect retail investors from manipulation. On Thursday, a number of Internet brokerages, including Robinhood and PCS, restricted retail investors from opening positions in burgeoning stocks and raised margins.
Robinhood, a popular U.S. Internet brokerage, said users cannot buy fractional securities and can sell and close fractional positions, but cannot open new fractional positions. The platform also restricted some cryptocurrency transactions, suspending users from buying digital currencies via instant transfer and only trading with settled cash in their accounts, saying “extreme conditions” exist in the digital currency market.
Robinhood is raising more than $1 billion from existing investors and $500 million through a bank line of credit to ensure users are allowed to trade heavily shorted stocks such as GameStop and AMC, according to several mainstream media outlets. The company had said it restricted trading in 13 stocks on Thursday because of financial compliance requirements, but sparked discontent among retail investors and politicians, and a U.S. congressional hearing may take place.
Famed short-seller Citron announced a transition to end 20 years of shorting research and focus on uncovering long opportunities from individual investors.
Internet brokerage firms Robinhood, Fidelity and Tiger Securities all said they would lift trading restrictions against some stocks, and retail holdout stocks, which fell deeply yesterday, surged and triggered a meltdown. GameStop (GME) doubled at the open, Goss Electronics rose as high as 90%, apparel retailer Express rose as high as 60%, AMC rose as high as more than 85%, BlackBerry rose as high as nearly 24%, Nokia rose as high as 11%, 3B Home rose as high as nearly 22% and Naked Brand Group rose as high as 64%.
Vaccinations suspended in many parts of Europe under vaccine shortage. The EU implemented new crown vaccine export control measures from Saturday, which will affect the global supply of vaccines. Novavax was up 76% at one point as the European Commission negotiated with it on vaccine procurement. AstraZeneca fell more than 1% as the EU questioned its shipping of vaccines produced in the EU to the UK, but the EU pharmaceutical authority gave a positive opinion on its vaccines. Johnson & Johnson fell more than 3% after the new crown vaccine was 66% effective in global clinical trials.
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