US markets end lower on Thursday

20 Oct 2023 Evaluate

The US markets ended lower on Thursday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivered highly anticipated remarks at an Economic Club of New York luncheon. Powell argued in prepared remarks that inflation is still too high and warned additional monetary policy tightening may be needed. Powell said ‘In any case, inflation is still too high, and a few months of good data are only the beginning of what it will take to build confidence that inflation is moving down sustainably toward our goal.’ Powell described the current stance of monetary policy as restrictive and reiterated Fed officials are willing to keeping policy restrictive until they are confident inflation is on a downward path. Citing recent data showing the resilience of economic growth and demand for labor, Powell also warned additional monetary policy tightening could be needed.

Treasury yields moved higher following Powell's remarks, extending the upward trend seen over the past few sessions and once again reaching sixteen-year highs. The increase in yields also came as the Labor Department released a report showing initial jobless claims unexpectedly declined to a nearly nine-month low in the week ended October 14th. The report said initial jobless claims fell to 198,000, a decrease of 13,000 from the previous week's revised level of 211,000. Street had expected jobless claims to inch up to 212,000 from the 209,000 originally reported for the previous week. On the economic data front, interest rate-sensitive commercial real estate stocks saw substantial weakness on the day, dragging the Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate Index down by 2.4 percent. Considerable weakness also emerged among computer hardware stocks, as reflected by the 2.0 percent slump by the NYSE Arca Computer Hardware Index.

Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 250.91 points or 0.75 percent to 33,414.17, Nasdaq dropped 128.13 points or 0.96 percent to 13,186.18 and S&P 500 was down by 36.6 points or 0.85 percent to 4,278. 


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