U.S. Stocks Fall After Fed Chair Powell's Speech

By Liz Moyer 

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks fell after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said taming inflation would take a sustained effort that could lead to pain for households and businesses.

At 10:16 ET (14:16 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 81 points or 0.2% while the S&P 500 ticked lower 0.3%, and the NASDAQ Composite was down 0.4%.

Investors were looking to Powell’s comments for hints the central bank might make smaller interest rate hikes at coming meetings, after raising rates by 0.75 percentage points in each of its last two meetings. Some have been betting the Fed will raise its benchmark rate by a half-point at its September meeting. Powell, speaking at the Fed's annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyo., didn't offer specifics, but did say higher rates would be necessary for longer but added at some point it would be appropriate to slow the pace of the increases.

Powell has said policymakers would be looking at data to determine their next move. One data point it looks at closely is the core personal consumption index, which came out this morning and showed a 4.6% increase in July over last year, on pace with expectations and down from June’s 4.8% reading. That comes after the consumer price index for July slowed from June. More inflation data and the August jobs report will come out in coming weeks.

Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL) shares fell 8% after the personal computer maker cut its outlook for the year, saying consumers were slowing their purchases amid the challenging economic environment.

Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA) shares rose 3% after better than expected earnings and an optimistic outlook for sales of cosmetics and other beauty products.

Oil rose. Crude Oil WTI Futures rose 0.2% to $92.69 a barrel while Brent Oil Futures crude rose 0.4% to $99.68 a barrel. Gold Futures slipped 0.5% to $1763.