US stock markets all traded more than 1% lower on Tuesday, reopening after President’s Day on Monday.
Most benchmarks reversed losses of as much as 2% after the entry of Russian troops into ‘separatist’ parts of Ukraine scared investors.
As much as this is likely to be a localised issue, the threat of sanctions could harm the economy given Russia produces around 20% of the world’s oil.
At this stage, no financial sanctions have been imposed but Germany has paused their massive Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russia.
Home Depot the real detractor
The Dow Jones was down 1.4%, the S&P 500 dropped 1.0% and the Nasdaq fell 1.2%, but interestingly it was Home Depot’s (NYSE: HD) report driving the former.
The Home Depot share price fell by close to 9%, contributing to more than 30% of the Dow’s fall, despite beating earnings estimates and hiking its dividend by 15%. Investors are clearly concerned about the weakening margins and higher costs.
US stock market movers
Here’s how other popular US stocks performed on Tuesday.
- Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ: KHC) up 5.0%
- Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) down 4.1%
- Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) down 4.7%
- Airbnb (NASDAQ: ABNB) down 5.5%
- Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) down 6.6%
Back home on the ASX, the S&P/ASX 200 (ASX: XJO) is tipped to edge lower when the market opens this morning. For a round-up of the latest news, check out my ASX 200 morning report.
