By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – The S&P 500 moved off session lows Tuesday, but remained on course to close in correction territory after the U.S. outlined fresh sanctions to deter Russia from further invading Ukraine.
The S&P 500 fell 0.4%, and entered correction territory intraday after falling about 10% from its recent peak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.9%, or 314 points, the Nasdaq slipped 0.4%.
"We're implementing full blocking sanctions to large Russian financial institutions, VEB, and their military bank," President Joe Biden said. These sanctions would cut off Russia's government from Western financing.
Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that Russia had recognized the expanded borders of Luhansk and Donetsk after initially indicating that Moscow would recognize only the two separatist-held areas in Eastern Ukraine.
Stocks moved off session lows following Biden's remarks, with tech and financials cutting losses.
Big tech including Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:FB) were off session lows.
Financials, mostly banks were supported by jump in Treasury yields even as the odds of a 50-basis points hike at the Federal Reserve has diminished.
Signature Bank (NASDAQ:SBNY), First Republic Bank (NYSE:FRC), People’s United Financial Inc (NASDAQ:PBCT) were among the biggest gainers.
About 30% of traders expect the Fed to raise rates by 50 basis points, down from about 90% last week.
Energy stocks also moved off session lows, though remained in the red as oil prices eased from session highs.
Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE:PXD), APA (NASDAQ:APA), and Devon Energy (NYSE:DVN) were the hardest hit stocks in the energy sector, with the latter down more than 3%.
Consumer discretionary stocks were also a big drag on the broader market, with Home Depot down more than 8% despite reporting better-than-expected fourth quarter results.
Home Depot (NYSE:HD) reported fourth-quarter earnings of $3.21 on revenue of $35.72 billion, underpinned by comparable sales of 8.1%.
Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ:KHC) bucked the trend lower, rising 4% after the food and beverage company boosted its long-term growth guidance and reiterated its guidance for 2022.
In other news, the special purpose acquisition company Digital World Acquisition (NASDAQ:DWAC), which is taking former President Donald Trump's social media app Truth Social, surged 11% on data showing the social media app had strong debut on Sunday as it racked up over 170,000 downloads on Apple's App Store.