The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped down in its recent trading at the intraday levels, to record losses in its last sessions and for the second day in a row, by -1.43%. It then lost the index towards -503.53 points and settled at the end of trading at the level of 34,738.07, after its decline in Thursday’s trading. It reached -1.47% during last week's trading, and the index fell by -1.00%.
Stocks fell at the end of the week after the White House warned that Russia may invade Ukraine soon and with investors evaluating a survey showing consumer confidence waning on concerns about rising inflation.
News reports have indicated that the United States expects Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine within days, and that Moscow has informed the Russian military of these plans.
"We continue to see signs of Russian escalation, including the arrival of new forces at the Ukrainian border," Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden's national security adviser, told reporters on Friday. The New York Times quoted Sullivan warning that the invasion could begin "during the Olympics" and that all Americans should leave Ukraine within the next 24 to 48 hours.
In economic data, the University of Michigan's preliminary gauge of February consumer sentiment fell to 61.7, from January's level of 67.2, the lowest reading since October 2011. Economists had expected a reading of 67, according to economists polled by the Wall Street Journal.
Technically, the index’s recent losses came because of it colliding with the resistance of its simple moving average for the previous 50 days, in conjunction with the arrival of the relative strength indicators to areas of severe overbought operations. It needs to get rid of the negative pressure, and also try to drain some of its overbought, especially with the emergence of a negative crossover with the relative strength indicators.
All of this comes considering the dominance of the main bullish trend over the medium term and its trading along a minor bullish slope line, as shown in the attached chart for a (daily) period.
We expect more corrective decline for the index during its upcoming trading, especially in case it breaks the support 34,690.25, to target immediately after that the important support level 34,000.
