According to statements by US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on future monetary policy, US stock markets stumbled on Wednesday.

Concerns that the tightening of monetary policy could become reality even faster than expected this year caused turbulence on the markets, which had recovered significantly at times.

The interest rate decision itself met expectations and initially left the markets rather cold.

As expected, there will probably be a first rate hike in March.

However, the markets came under pressure because of the fear that there could be more interest rate hikes in 2022 than the four already priced in.

When asked, Powell did not rule out raising interest rates at each of the coming meetings.

Including March, the Fed is scheduled to meet seven times this year.

Small plus in technology stocks

The rollercoaster ride on the US stock exchanges entered the next round this week.

After a peak gain of 1.5 percent, the Dow Jones Industrial finally lost 0.38 percent to 34,168.09 points.

The broad-based S&P 500 fell 0.15 percent to 4349.93 points.

However, the technology stocks, which have recently been particularly heavily penalized, managed to salvage a small profit in the final chord.

Based on pleasing figures from Microsoft, among others, the Nasdaq 100 rose by 0.17 percent to 14,172.76 points.

At the top he had previously gained well over three percent.

Asian financial markets also reacted to Powell's comments, falling to their lowest levels in more than 14 months.

The Nikkei index was 2.6 percent lower at 26,321 points.

The broader Topix index fell 2 percent to 1854 points.

The Shanghai stock exchange was down 1.3 percent.

The index of the most important companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen lost 1.4 percent.

"Powell's comments from the press conference are received much worse on the floor than the actual Fed statement," said market observer Thomas Altmann from asset manager QC Partners.

In view of the remaining meetings this year, the currency guardian had the stock market traders sit up and take notice.

Altmann reckons that market expectations will then be closer to five rate hikes than four.

Microsoft shares dominated the Dow, finishing up 2.9 percent.

Analysts praised the software giant's figures, which after days of falling prices in the technology sector again set a more positive scent for this industry.

Analyst Kirk Materne from the analysis company Evercore ISI emphasized an optimistic group forecast for the cloud platform Azure in the current business quarter.

Boeing on the descent

The same applied to the Nasdaq representative Texas Instruments, whose shares ultimately rose by 2.5 percent.

The chip group had also presented strong quarterly figures and surprised the group of experts with an optimistic view of the future.

Tesla also moved into the Nasdaq focus with a recovery of 2.1 percent ahead of the electric car maker's upcoming after-hours results.

However, Boeing did not join this positive series, the papers of the aircraft manufacturer went down with 4.8 percent.

The corona crisis and problems with the long-haul jet 787 "Dreamliner" caused the aircraft manufacturer to lose another billion in 2021.

The titles of the telecom giant AT&T even dropped by 8.4 percent according to its quarterly figures.

According to analysts, in the fourth quarter the increased advertising expenditure was reflected in a high increase in customers with disappointing profitability.

Euro falls to its lowest level since the pre-Christmas period

The toy manufacturer Mattel, meanwhile, made a positive impression by achieving a price increase of 4.3 percent.

He has regained a coveted license to produce Disney toys, including characters based on the Frozen films.

The rights were lost to rival Hasbro in 2016, which is now back on the rocks.

Its papers came under pressure at 6.1 percent.

According to Powell's statements, the euro fell to its lowest level since the pre-Christmas period.

Most recently, the common currency cost 1.1240 US dollars.

The European Central Bank (ECB) had previously set the reference rate at 1.1277 (Tuesday: 1.1268) US dollars.

The dollar thus cost 0.8868 (0.8875) euros.

US Treasury bond prices also fell.

The futures contract for ten-year Treasuries recently lost 0.66 percent to 127.28 points.

Conversely, the yield on 10-year Treasuries rose to 1.88 percent, in line with its recent two-year high.