U.S. stock gains seen early in the session fizzled out around midday on Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 turning negative, but with the Nasdaq Composite still aiming to clinch a second daily gain.
All eyes remain on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who answered questions from the House Financial Services Committee during a second day of Congressional testimony.
What’s happening
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.25% was off 135 points, or 0.4%, to trade at 30,349 after rising nearly 200 points earlier in the session.
- The S&P 500 SPX, +0.03% fell 8 points, or 0.2%, to 3,752.
- The Nasdaq Composite COMP, +0.46% increased 18 points, or 0.2%, to 11,072.
On Wednesday, the Dow fell 47 points, or 0.1%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite also finished slightly lower.
What’s driving markets
Investors are increasingly focused on the threat of a sharp economic downturn as the Federal Reserve gets more aggressive in tightening monetary policy. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday he doesn’t think a recession is inevitable, but that he also has an “unconditional” commitment to fight inflation, in his second day of testimony to Congress on interest-rate policy.
“It’s a clear signal that the Fed doesn’t have the market’s back anymore,” said Anthony Saglimbene, Ameriprise Financial’s global market strategist, of Powell’s testimony. “I think the Fed is unbothered of slowing growth if it causes a shallow recession.”
With that, Saglimbene expects it to be a tough summer for stocks, with little reason for investors to turn bullish until there’s more clarity on where U.S. inflation is headed, but also what’s “the Fed’s stopping point for rate hikes,” he said, by phone.
Given the jittery backdrop, it was difficult to pinpoint an exact driver of early session gains for stocks that later faded. “Dip buyers, bottom pickers, quarter-end rebalancing, rotation out of commodities into stocks. Pick your favorite,” said Mohannad Aama, a portfolio manager at Beam Capital Management.
Recent talk of recession has brought the yield on the 10-year Treasury TMUBMUSD10Y, 3.057% down to 3.05% from as high as 3.48% earlier this month. Falling yields can help long-duration assets such as technology stocks and bitcoin BTCUSD, +2.15%, which rose in early action on Thursday.
In economic data, new filings for unemployment benefits declined by 2,000 last week to 229,000 while remaining near a five-month high. It’s the latest sign that the U.S.’s red-hot labor market is finally starting to cool.
U.S. private-sector activity saw a sharp slowdown in growth in June, a pair of surveys showed, as high inflation forced customers to cut back on orders and rising interest rates induced worries about a recession.
The S&P U.S. services index fell to a five-month low of 51.6 in June from 53.4 in the prior month, based on flash or preliminary survey. The U.S. manufacturing index, meanwhile, slid to a nearly two-year low of 52.4 from 57 in the prior month. A reading above 50 indicates expansion.
Companies in focus
- Netflix Inc. NFLX, -0.17% shares were down 0.3% after executives confirmed ads are coming to the streaming service.
- Walmart Inc. WMT, +2.02% shares were up 1.8% after it rolled out a plan expanding healthcare coverage of women to help address racial inequities in maternal care.
- Revlon REV, -12.96% shares retreated Thursday following a torrid rally that was reminiscent of the “meme stock” craze from early 2021, as the company’s heavily shorted shares have surged more than 300% since the firm filed for bankruptcy protection.
- Altria Group MO, +1.17% continued to slide as the FDA prepares to order Juul e-cigarettes to be banned in the U.S. market.
- Boxed BOXD, -12.86%, the online wholesale retailer, saw its shares fall 12.4%.
- Occidental Petroleum OXY, -0.07% shares fell 0.6% as Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett increased his firm’s stake in the oil-and-gas company, according to regulatory filings cited by The Wall Street Journal.
How other assets are trading
- West Texas Intermediate crude CL.1, -1.18% for August delivery was off 1%.
- The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, +0.28% was up 0.3%.
- The Europe STOXX 600 was down 0.8%, while the FTSE 100 fell 1%.
- The Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, +1.62% gained 1.6%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HSI00, -2.30% rose 1.3% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 NIK, +0.08% climbed 0.1%.
—Steve Goldstein contributed reporting
This article was originally published by Marketwatch.com. Read the original article here.
