Wall Street is troubled by the premature rate hikes by the Fed

Wall Street is troubled by renewed fear of premature rate hikes by the Fed. The US standard value index Dow Jones closed on Wednesday 0.7 percent lower to 36,079 points. The technology-heavy Nasdaq fell 1.7 percent to 15,622 points. The broad S&P 500 lost 0.8 percent to 4646 points. The US inflation rate rose surprisingly sharply by 6.2 percent in October, the highest value in 31 years. "Even if the Fed believes that inflation is temporary, there is increasing evidence that this is not true," said Rick Meckler, partner at asset manager Cherry Lane. So far, the US central bankers have not taken any surprising steps. "But even they are starting to get a little worried about this increase." Thomas Hayes, manager at asset manager Great Hill, on the other hand, urges prudence. The current setback is a natural breather. "Prices have risen quite sharply in a short period of time compared to their September lows." On the foreign exchange market, speculation about interest rate hikes helped the dollar index, which reflects the exchange rate against major currencies, to gain one percent to 94.889 points. Government bonds, on the other hand, flew out of the custody accounts. This increased the yield on ten-year Treasuries to 1.544 percent. Some investors also stocked up on the "anti-inflation currency" gold. The price of the precious metal rose up to two percent to a five-month high of $ 1,868.20 a troy ounce (31.1 grams). This helped gold mine operators such as AngloGold Ashanti, Barrick, Gold Fields, Harmony, Newmont, Kirkland and Sibanye Stillwater to price gains of 4.8 percent. Other investors turned to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, which reached new record highs of 69,000 and 4,867.60 dollars, respectively.