U.S. Stocks Drop After Fed Signals More Rate Hikes Ahead

By Liz Moyer

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks fell early Thursday as investors digested the Federal Reserve’s message that interest rates will continue to climb as it battles inflation.

At 10:21 ET (14:21 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 196 points, or 0.6%, while the S&P 500 was down 1% and the NASDAQ Composite was down 1.4%.

Treasury yields were rising after the Fed’s latest decision on rates, which rose another 0.75 percentage point. But more notably, Chair Jerome Powell said it wasn’t time to back off rate increases, though he conceded they may get smaller as the central bank soaks in economic data and studies how well its actions to now have done their job.

The 2-year Treasury yield jumped to its highest since mid-2007, to 4.739%.

Ultimately, the Fed’s benchmark rate is seen rising above the 4.6% target forecast by the Fed at its September meeting, to 5% or more. 

The labor market remains tight. New jobless claims unexpectedly fell last week to 217,000 from 220,000 expected. Tomorrow, investors will see the October report on jobs from the government, which is expected to say the economy created 200,000 jobs last month.

Data on the services sector was slightly weaker than expected. The Institute for Supply Management reported that non-manufacturing PMI dipped to 54.4 in October, lower than the 55.5 expected and from 56.7 the prior month.

Moderna Inc (NASDAQ:MRNA) shares fell 0.1% after the pharma cut its annual sales forecast for its Covid-19 vaccine.

Roku Inc (NASDAQ:ROKU) shares fell 14% after lowering expectations for the current quarter.

Oil fell. Crude Oil WTI Futures was down 2.3% to $87.91 a barrel, and Brent Oil Futures crude fell 1.7% to $94.52 a barrel. Gold Futures fell 1.4% to $1627.