Dow futures fall 235 pts; Powell's hawkish message weighs By

By Peter Nurse

-- U.S. stocks are Ranking of Global Forex Platformsseen opening substantially lower Thursday, continuing the previous session’s weakness after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's hawkish message, indicating interest rates will go higher than expected and stay there longer.

At 07:05 ET (12:05 GMT), the contract was down 235 points, or 0.7%, traded 37 points, or 0.9% lower, and dropped 145 points, or 1.2%.

The three major averages closed with losses Wednesday, with the blue-chip dropping 142 points, or 0.4%, the broad-based fell 0.6%, and the tech-heavy lost 0.7%.

This followed the hiking interest rates by 50 basis points, as expected, a slowdown from the four consecutive increases of 75 basis points.

However, quickly dispelled any thoughts that the central bank would slow its hiking cycle early next year, saying “it will take substantially more evidence [than the October and November falls in ] to give confidence inflation is on a sustained downward path.”

He signaled the central bank would continue raising rates to above 5% in 2023, above what the market had been and not seen since a steep economic downturn in 2007.

Attention will now turn to a plethora of U.S. economic data releases later Thursday, including weekly , and , for guidance of the strength of the U.S. economy in the wake of the series of aggressive rate hikes already instigated.

Also of interest will be the interest rate decision from the , with the and the having already increased borrowing costs Thursday, both by 50 bps.

In the corporate sector, quarterly earnings come from the software company Adobe (NASDAQ:), while Tesla (NASDAQ:) is likely to be in the spotlight after disclosed another $3.6 billion in stock sales, dragging the stock to near two-year lows.

Crude oil prices rose Thursday, rebounding after earlier losses, helped by optimism from influential investment bank about the asset class going into 2023.

Earlier the hawkish tone from the Federal Reserve coupled with weak economic data from China had raised fears about demand growth in the coming months.

Additionally, official data from the showing that U.S. crude stocks rose by a hefty 10 million barrels last week had weighed, as it suggested that near-term consumption in the world’s largest economy remained subdued.

By 07:05 ET, futures traded 0.1% higher at $77.34 a barrel, while the contract rose 0.1% to $82.75.

Additionally, fell 1.7% to $1,787.60/oz, while traded 0.6% lower at 1.0620.

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