Crypto-currency, equity and metals markets plunge as tech company results disappoint and U.S. economic weakness worsens

The tech giant’s recent conference was deemed disappointing, and results from companies such as Boeing, Texas Instruments and 3M were also lackluster. Gold and silver prices fell between 0.43% and 0.72% on Wednesday, and the crypto-currency economy has fallen 2.79% against the U.S. dollar in the past 24 hours.

Concerns about the U.S. recession rise as corporate earnings disappoint.

After a few weeks of gains, stocks, precious metals and crypto-currencies were down on January 25, 2023. As investors awaited the upcoming U.S. Federal Reserve meeting, the state of the U.S. economy showed great weakness. Earnings reports from Microsoft, Union Pacific, Texas Instruments and others on Wednesday indicated that the economy was not improving and reinforced lingering concerns about a possible U.S. recession.

By Wednesday afternoon, the four benchmark U.S. stock indexes – the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), S&P 500 (SPX), Nasdaq Composite (IXIC) and Russell 2000 (RUT) – were all down between 1% and 2.05%. In addition to poor earnings reports from some of the nation’s largest companies, industrial production in the U.S. declined by about 1%.

Industrial production also fell in November 2022, with a 0.6% year-over-year decline. Another shock was that retail sales during the holiday season were also weak in November and December 2022. The data show that retail sales slipped 1.1% last month, and with the vacations in full swing, it was the biggest drop of the year.

Precious metals and crypto-assets continue to fall amid economic uncertainty.

Precious metals such as gold, silver and platinum have all seen losses against the U.S. dollar over the past 24 hours as well. The spot price in New York on January 25, 2023, shows gold trading at $1,931.70 per troy ounce, down 0.43%. Silver is down 0.72% and trading at $23.59 per ounce as of 11 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday. According to Kenneth Broux, strategist at Societe Generale, escalating tensions in Ukraine, weak corporate earnings and recession fears are plaguing investors.

“The market is certainly concerned about slowing earnings growth, especially in the technology sector, so there is a sense that the market wants to continue to sell the technology and the dollar“, said Kenneth Broux on Wednesday. “But a huge tail risk now is what happens in Ukraine, if there is an escalation in the conflict and Europe is drawn into the conflict“, added the strategist.

The crypto-currency economy is hovering just above the $1 trillion mark at $1,019,712,653,474, according to metrics recorded Wednesday. Crypto-currency markets are down 2.79 percent overall, and 2.5 percent in the aggregate. Bitcoin (BTC) lost 1.49 percent on Wednesday. The second largest crypto currency, ethereum (ETH)lost even more, with a 4.66% loss in value since Tuesday.

Global crypto-currency trading volume exceeded the $100 billion a day region not so long ago, but today, global trading volume is around $55.98 billion across the crypto-currency economy. Despite Wednesday’s pullback, precious metals, stocks and cryptocurrency assets are still doing much better than they did last month. As of 11:30 a.m. ET Wednesday, gold was up against the U.S. dollar, but is still down 0.2 percent, and silver was also up and is currently up 0.13 percent.