S&P 500 closes lower as spike in Treasury yields weigh By Investing.com
Investing.com– The S&P 500 slipped lower Monday, pressured by a rise in Treasury yields after last week’s blowout jobs report dented hopes for a jumbo Fed rate cut next month.
At 4.00 p.m. ET (2000 GMT), fell 398 points, or 0.9%, dropped 1%, and slipped 1.2%.
back above 4% as bets on jumbo-rate cut ease
Treasury yields jumped, putting stocks on the back foot after a much stronger-than-expected September jobs report dimmed hopes for another jumbo-sized rate cut at the Fed’s November meeting.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury ended above 4% for the time since August.
“The rebound in job growth puts the FOMC on a path of 25bp cuts for now,” Goldman Sachs said in a recent note.
A slew of Federal Reserve officials are set to speak in the coming days, offering monetary policy clues following the strong September jobs report.
Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari suggested Monday that the Fed welcomed the strong September jobs report, underscored the strength economy, which the central bank hopes will continue as its focus is now on the labor market.
“It looks like it is still a strong labor market…it’s really good news as we want to keep a strong labor market,” Neel Kashkari said, referencing the blowout September jobs report.
The due Wednesday are likely to provide further clues on rate cuts. The Fed had cut rates by 50 bps during the meeting and marked the start of an easing cycle.
inflation data for September is also due later this week, and is likely to factor into expectations for the path of U.S. interest rates.
Banks set to kick off Q3 earnings season
The third-quarter earnings season is set to start this week, with major banks JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:), Wells Fargo (NYSE:) and Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE:) set to report quarterly earnings on Friday.
Markets will be watching to gauge whether corporate earnings persevered against pressure from high interest rates and sticky inflation.
Bullish investors are hoping results will justify increasingly rich valuations in the stock market. The S&P 500 is up 20% for the year so far and is trading near record highs despite recent volatility spurred by rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
Google falls on app store worries, Pfizer rises on activist action; Hershey slips after UBS downgrade
Alphabet Inc Class A (NASDAQ:) fell more than 2% after a U.S. judge delivered a final ruling on a anititrust lawsuit brought by Epic Games that forces the tech giant to offer alternatives to its Google Play store for downloading apps on Android phones. Google has vowed to appeal the decision.
Pfizer (NYSE:) stock rose 2.2% after Bloomberg reported that activist investor Starboard Value has taken a stake of about $1 billion in the drugs giant, seeking to spur a turnaround of the struggling company.
Hershey Co (NYSE:) falls 2% after UBS downgraded the stock to neutral from market perform on concerns that inflation will likely continue to eat into margins.
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:) fell more than 3% after Wells Fargo downgraded the e-commerce giant to equal weight from overweight as worries about rising competition from Walmart (NYSE:).
