Wall Street ends higher Wednesday after a bad Tuesday for the S&P 500 and Dow
Wall Street closed higher as the bond market loosened its vise on the stock market.
The S&P 500 rose 0.8% Wednesday, coming off a 1.4% tumble that sent it to its lowest level in four months. The Dow rose 127 points, a day after wiping out its gains for the year. The Nasdaq composite added 1.4%. Treasury yields eased to give the stock market some more oxygen after reports suggested the U.S. economy may be cooling. Oil prices also tumbled by $5 per barrel to take some pressure off inflation and the threat of rates staying very high.
Stocks have struggled since the summer under the weight of soaring Treasury yields in the bond market. High yields undercut stock prices by pulling investment dollars away from stocks and into bonds. They also crimp corporate profits by making borrowing more expensive.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which is the centerpiece of the bond market, pulled back from its highest level since 2007, down to 4.74% from 4.80% late Tuesday. Shorter- and longer-term yields also eased to offer more oxygen to the stock market.
Yields fell after a report indicated hiring by employers outside the government was weaker last month than expected. On Wall Street currently, the hope is for a cooling job market because that may mean less upward pressure on inflation. That in turn could convince the Federal Reserve to take it easier on interest rates.
The Fed has hiked its main interest rate to the highest level since 2001 and indicated it will keep rates higher next year than it had earlier expected. Traders on Wall Street have been coming around to the Fed’s predictions that it will keep rates high for longer, which is why Treasury yields have snapped so much higher.
The Fed is paying particular attention to the job market because too much strength there could drive wages for workers much higher, which it fears could keep inflation well above its target of 2%.
Wednesday’s report from ADP suggested private employers added 89,000 jobs last month, a much sharper slowdown in hiring than the 140,000 that economists expected.
The report doesn’t have a perfect track record in predicting what the more comprehensive jobs report from the U.S. government says. That will arrive on Friday.
But “if Friday’s report also shows the labor market is cooling, stock investors may worry a little less about indefinitely higher interest rates,” said Mike Loewengart, head of model portfolio construction at Morgan Stanley Global Investment Office.
Oil prices tumbled Wednesday to take some heat off inflation. Benchmark U.S. crude fell $5.01 to settle at $84.22 per barrel, the worst drop in just over a year. It’s been pulling back since topping $93 last week. Brent crude, the international standard, lost $5.11 to $85.81.
Prices for crude have been generally charging higher from $70 during the summer following announcements of cuts to production by some oil-producing countries.
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Wall Street is also absorbing the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as the speaker of the House of Representatives. The unprecedented move to remove a speaker from the position likely doesn’t change much in the short term, with funding for the U.S. government set until Nov. 17.
“That said, a leadership vacuum in the House raises the odds of a government shutdown when the current funding extension expires,” according to economists at Goldman Sachs.
A shutdown would likely drag on the U.S. economy, raising the risk of a recession, though financial markets have mostly managed relatively well through past shutdowns.
On Wall Street, Big Tech stocks were helping to support the market after leading it lower a day earlier. They tend to move more sharply with expectations for rates because high-growth stocks are seen as some of the biggest victims of high yields.
Tesla jumped 4.8%, and Microsoft rose 1.4% to be two of the strongest forces pushing upward on the S&P 500 because of their massive size. Alphabet rose 1.8%.
On the losing end of Wall Street were big oil-and-gas companies, which fell with the price of crude. Exxon Mobil dropped 4.3%, Chevron lost 2.8% and ConocoPhillips slid 4.7%.
Cal-Maine tumbled 7.5% after the egg producer reported a sharp drop in profit for its latest quarter from a year earlier. The company said egg prices have returned “to more normalized levels” from their record highs as the industry recovers from the most recent outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza.
In markets abroad, stock indexes were modestly higher in much of Europe.
Asian stocks tumbled more, coming off the prior day’s sharp losses from Wall Street. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index sank 2.3%, South Korea’s Kospi dropped 2.4% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng skidded 0.8%.
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
