US equities sink for 4th straight session as Santa Claus rally fizzles

US Stocks continued the sell-off from last week with the Tech heavy Nasdaq leading losses on rate and growth jitters with all three major US indexes hitting 6-week lows.

Equity bulls were hoping to see the traditional end of year rally materialise, with the week running up to Christmas being positive or unchanged 15 of the last 20 years, but carry over concerns from the hawkish FOMC meeting last week dampened the markets mood. Traders also seem to be sitting on the sidelines to some extent ahead of the Feds preferred inflation gauge released on Friday.

The Nasdaq slide was led by routs in Amazon (AMZN)  (-3.35%) , tumbling to its lowest level since March 2020, and Meta (META) (-4.14%) as a higher rate environment weighed on these growth stocks. Meta also having issues with an antitrust suit in the EU.

The US dollar drifted marginally higher over the session, with the US Dollar index back to levels before the soft CPI plunge from last week.

Bitcoin followed Tech lower , slipping below 16300 USD and back to 3 week lows  on broad crypto weakness reflecting renewed fears over Binance.

The day ahead is fairly quiet on the news front, with no surprises expected from Chinese or Japanese rate decisions (though the JPY will be one to watch in the new year with a change or leadership at the BoJ). RBA minutes from their last meeting are also set to be released but rarely have an impact on AUD.