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US markets closed sharply lower again on Thursday after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that hopes for a policy pivot were ‘premature’ after the central bank delivered a fourth consecutive 75-basis point rate hike on Wednesday. The S&P500 fell 1.1%, the Dow Jones lost 0.5% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq took the biggest hit, closing the session down 1.7%. Despite the tech sell-off, shares in creative marketplace Etsy rallied 15% on Thursday after the company released quarterly earnings results that beat market expectations. US investors now shift focus to the important jobs data out today, with the market expecting an increase of 190,000 jobs to payrolls in October. Should the figures come in at 190,000 it would indicate the tight labour market in the US remains as demand of jobs continues to well outweigh supply of available workers across the nation.
Over in the UK, investor sentiment was also dampened by the Bank of England following in the US footsteps by also raising the UK’s interest rate 75-basis points yesterday. Despite the rate hike, the FTSE100 rose 0.62% on Thursday. In Europe, the sell-off from Wednesday continued with Germany’s DAX falling almost 1%, the French CAC dropping 0.54% and the STOXX600 closing down 0.93%.
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