US markets end lower on Monday

02 May 2023 Evaluate

The US markets ended lower on Monday as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement on Wednesday. While the Fed is widely expected to raise interest rates by another 25 basis points. Ahead of the meeting, private report is indicating an 88.9 percent chance the Fed will raise rates by 25 basis points and a 64.1 percent chance the central bank will subsequently leave rates unchanged in June. On the sectoral front, banking stocks showed a significant move to the downside, with the KBW Bank Index falling by 1.8 percent. Considerable weakness was also visible among retail stocks, as reflected by the 1.5 percent drop by the Dow Jones U.S. Retail Index.

On the economic data front, U.S. manufacturing activity contracted for the sixth consecutive month in April, according to a report released by the Institute for Supply Management, although the pace of contraction slowed by more than expected. The ISM said its manufacturing PMI rose to 47.1 in April from 46.3 in March, with a reading below 50 indicating a contraction. Street had expected the index to inch up to 46.6. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department released a report on Monday showing an unexpected increase in U.S construction spending in the month of March. The report said construction spending rose by 0.3 percent to an annual rate of $1.835 trillion in March after falling by 0.3 percent to a revised rate of $1.830 trillion in February. Street had expected construction spending to edge down by 0.1 percent, matching the dip originally reported for the previous month.

Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 46.46 points or 0.14 percent to 34,051.7, Nasdaq fell 13.99 points or 0.11 percent to 12,212.6 and S&P 500 was down by 1.61 points or 0.04 percent to 4,167.87.

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