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02/07/24
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Stocks On Wall Street Inch Down
On Tuesday, stocks in the U.S. edged lower, as investors evaluated comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell before key labor market data.
The NASDAQ Composite dropped 60 points, or 0.3%, the S&P 500 slipped 10 points, or 0.2%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 20 points, or 0.1%.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell spoke at a conference of the European Central Bank, and investors parsed his remarks as they looked for clues as to when the U.S. central bank would start reducing interest rates.
The minutes of the Fed’s latest meeting are also due on Wednesday and will be released after the central bank during the meeting forecast that it would only cut interest rates once in this year.
The May labor turnover and job openings report is also due out later today, but the focus will mainly be on Friday’s nonfarm payrolls.
The labor sector has been running strong despite high interest rates and persistent inflation and is a crucial consideration for the Fed in reducing interest rates.
Despite the Fed sending hawkish signals, traders increased their bets that the central bank would reduce interest rates by 0.25% in Sept. According to the CME Fedwatch tool, traders are pricing in a 59% probability of this possibility.
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