Investing.com – Take a peek at the top 5 things that rocked U.S. markets this week
The dollar snapped a 3-week losing streak after nonfarm payrolls topped expectations
The dollar, snapped a three-week losing streak, rising 0.19% to 95.76, against its rivals as investors cheered a mostly upbeat jobs report on Friday.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, nonfarm payrolls grew by 222,000 in June, well above expectations of a 179,000 increase, but the unemployment rate fell to 4.4%, a notch above analysts’ forecasts of 4.3%.
Gold slipped to 4-month lows
The strong jobs report on Friday, reduce demand for safe-haven gold, which fell to four month lows amid growing expectations that the Federal Reserve will keep to its plan to increase interest rates at least once more this year.
In a rising interest rate environment, investor appetite for gold weakens as the opportunity cost of holding the precious metal increases relative to other interest-bearing assets such as bonds.
Fed minutes revealed some members uncomfortable with additional rate hike
Federal Reserve members continued to view the recent slowdown in inflation as transitory and insisted that it would rise to the central bank’s target of 2% over the longer-term, according FOMC minutes released on Wednesday.
On the topic of future rate hikes, the minutes revealed a few policymakers were uncomfortable with the current implied path of rate hikes amid the recent slowdown in inflation.
Economists, however, largely expect the Fed to begin shrinking its balance sheet at its September meeting before raising rates again at its final meeting of the year in December.
Shares of Tesla fell into bear-market territory.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) fell into bear-market territory, as its shares have dropped more than 20% from its peak of $386.77, following a more than 15% slump this week, after Goldman Sachs lowered its price target from $190 to $180.
Goldman expressed concerns about falling demand for the older Model S and Model X and doubted whether Tesla would be able to meet upcoming production goals.
The downgrade came after Tesla's second quarter deliveries number of approximately 22,000 cars missed Wall Street consensus of 24,200.
On Friday, Tesla closed at $313.22, up about 1.4%.
The ‘crude conundrum’ continued
Fresh on the heels of posting their worst first-half performance since 1998 last week, crude futures settled nearly 3% lower on Friday, as U.S. production jitters resurfaced, following an uptick in output and a weekly rise in oil rigs.
On Thursday, the EIA reported that crude levels in U.S. storage fell by 6.3 million barrels in the week ended June 30, but total domestic production also edged up by 88,000 barrels to 9.338 million barrels a day.
Negative sentiment was further compounded, following data showing that Opec exports rose in May for the second month in a row.
Opec exported 25.92 million barrels per day (bpd) in June, 450,000 bpd more than in May and 1.9 million bpd more than a year earlier.