US equities posted weekly losses despite rising on Friday, weighed down by growing investor concerns about the economic outlook.
Stocks stumbled over the week and investors weighed in on fears that an increase in Covid-19 infections and a slowdown in China’s growth could impede global recovery.
Concerns about central bank policy also reduced investors’ appetite for riskier assets, analysts said. The minutes released Wednesday of the last Federal Reserve political meeting showed that most officials believe they should start reducing easy money policies by the end of this year. Many investors credit the rise of the market over the past year in part to extraordinary levels of support for central banks.
Although the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite managed to rise on Thursday and Friday, their gains were not enough to offset the falls with respect to earlier in the week. Losses were particularly strong among the shares of economically sensitive companies, such as banks, materials companies and energy producers.
“We are seeing a period of very strong global growth, but also very uneven over the next two months,” said Hugh Gimber, strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management. “The government’s reaction now is very different in different parts of the world.”