U.S. Stocks Turn Lower as Investors Worry Over Interest Rates

By Liz Moyer

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks turned lower on Tuesday, extending the decline to a third day on worries about the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate outlook.

At 10:16 ET (14:16 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 158 points, or 0.5% while the S&P 500 was down 0.6% and the NASDAQ Composite was down 0.6%.

The S&P Core Logic Case Shiller home price index showed an 18% year-over-year gain in June but the pace of the increase is slowing from previous months. The JOLTs job openings report for July showed 11.239 million openings, higher than the expectation for 10.475 million. CB consumer confidence was a stronger than expected 103.2. The expectation had been for a reading of 97.9.

Investors have spent the last few days worrying about how aggressive the Fed will be in its quest to tame inflation. Before Friday’s speech by Chair Jerome Powell, investors had seen a chance the Fed would slow its pace of interest rate increases. But after Powell said the central bank would do whatever it takes when it comes to inflation, the expectation is it will continue with a 0.75-percentage point increase.

The next meeting for the Fed is in September.

Bed Bath&Beyond Inc (NASDAQ:BBBY) shares were up 7% in early trading as investors look forward to a meeting on Wednesday when management will explain its strategy.

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) was down 1% after Elon Musk filed another letter explaining his reasons for canceling his $44 billion takeover offer.

Oil fell. Crude Oil WTI Futures was down 4.6%, to $92.52 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures was down 4.1% to $98.71 a barrel. Gold Futures fell 0.7% to $1737.