NEW YORK >> Wall Street is heading for its worst drop in months today as a torrid rally that critics called overdone lost momentum.
The S&P 500 was down 1.3% in afternoon trading and heading for its sharpest drop since April. It would also mark a second straight loss after hitting a 16-month high.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 334 points, or 0.9%, at 35,296, as of 2:45 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 2.1% lower.
Prices were mixed in the bond market after Fitch Ratings cut the credit rating of the U.S. government. The repeated standoffs in Congress about whether to allow a default on the U.S. debt were just some of the reasons for Fitch’s cut. The downgrade strikes at the core of the global financial system because U.S. Treasurys are considered some of the safest possible investments.
Fitch’s move follows a similar one by Standard & Poor’s in 2011, one that coincided with a European debt crisis to help cause stocks and bonds around the world to swing violently. So far, this most recent downgrade has caused less drama across markets.
While the downgrade highlights how much debt the U.S. government has and the big challenges it faces in how to pay for Social Security, Medicare and other expenses, none of that is news for investors.
“Fitch’s downgrade is much ado about nothing,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.
“Yes, it’s good to call out the fiscal situation, but when a country only issues debt in its own currency, the credit rating is irrelevant. Every investment fund I’ve looked at specifies that US Treasury securities are allowed investments, regardless of what a credit rating agency might think.”
The big issues for Wall Street remain whether the economy can avoid a long-predicted recession, as hoped, and what’s happening with corporate profits. And reports on both those questions came in mixed today.
That offered fodder for critics who say investors were too quick to embrace the belief that a soft landing is surely ahead for the economy. They’ve been saying Wall Street had rallied too much, too quickly this year. Analysts said some of today’s selling could be investors locking in profits made during the S&P 500’s 19.5% run for the year through July.
One report suggested private sector hiring remains much stronger than economists expected, even if it slowed from the prior month.
A job market that remains solid despite high interest rates could keep a lid on worries about a possible recession. But investors also fear a too-strong reading, which could persuade the Federal Reserve too much upward pressure still exists on inflation.
The Fed has already yanked its federal funds rate higher at tremendous speed in hopes of undercutting inflation. High rates do that by slowing the economy bluntly, but that risks causing a recession and hurts prices of investments along the way.
Inflation has been cooling since last summer’s peak, and the rising hope on Wall Street had been that the Fed won’t hike rates anymore and could even begin cutting them next year.
Today’s stronger-than-expected jobs report from ADP could be a signal of what Friday’s more comprehensive report from the U.S. government will say. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has highlighted Friday’s numbers as a big influence on the central bank’s next move in September.
Higher rates tend to hurt technology and other high-growth stocks in particular, and several Big Tech stocks pulled the market lower. Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon all fell at least 2.5% and were some of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500.
Generac Holdings, which sells generators and other power products, tumbled 24.8% for one of the biggest drops in the S&P 500 after it reported weaker profit for the spring than analysts expected.
SolarEdge Technologies dropped 17.9% after reporting weaker profit and revenue growth than forecast. It said higher interest rates are pressuring U.S. residential customers.
Most companies this reporting season, though, have been topping profit expectations. That’s usually the case, and expectations were quite low coming into this reporting season. Analysts were forecasting the worst drop for S&P 500 earnings per share in years.
On the winning side of Wall Street was CVS Health, which rose 3.4%. after the retail pharmacy chain reported a milder drop in results than expected. Humana climbed 5.1% after it topped expectations for the latest quarter.
They were among the he relatively few stocks to rise. Only about a quarter of the stocks in the S&P 500 were higher.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were broadly lower across Europe and Asia after the downgrade of the U.S. credit rating injected some caution.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 dove 2.3%, South Korea’s Kospi slid 1.9% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 2.5%. European losses were a bit more modest, with Germany’s DAX down 1.4%.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury rose to 4.07% from 4.04% late Tuesday. It helps set rates for mortgages and other important loans. The two-year U.S. Treasury yield slipped to 4.89% from 4.91% as its price rose.
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