NEW YORK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th November, 2021) US energy stocks ended mostly higher on Tuesday, lifting Wall Street broadly, after the White House's coordinated release of crude reserves with the governments of other consuming countries sent oil prices higher instead of lower as expected.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 indexes, which house most of the US energy stocks, rose as crude oil prices jumped more than 2% despite the Biden administration's announcement that it will release 50 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to counter output cuts by producers in the OPEC+ alliance. India and the United Kingdom followed up with announcements of a 5-million barrel and 1.5-million barrel release from their reserves, respectively, and China, South Korea and Japan are also expected to join the US plan.
"The coordinated SPR release was smaller-than-expected," Ed Moya, analyst at online trading platform OANDA, said, explaining the rise in the Dow and S&P 500.
Moya also noted that technology stocks on the Nasdaq Composite index fell for a second day in a row on concerns about overvaluation of the Big Tech sector amid soaring US inflation that could force the Federal Reserve into a faster-than-anticipated rate hike.
"The Nasdaq is getting punished as investors scale down their mega-cap tech bets as margin worries grow and Treasury yields continue to rise" on inflation worries, Moya said.
At the close, the Dow was up 195 points, or 0.6%, at 35,814, while the S&P 500 closed up 8 points, or 0.2%, at 4,691.
Stocks of oil majors, particularly rallied, with Exxon up $1.62, or 2.6%, at $63.13 and Chevron rising $2.39, or 2.1%, at $116.30.
The Nasdaq Composite, which groups Big Tech Names such as Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google, finished down 80 points, or 0.5%, at 15,775.
