Major Averages Shed Ground As Geopolitical Uncertainty, Rate Concerns Weigh
(RTTNews) - U.S. stocks drifted lower on Wednesday as higher bond yields and oil's rebound amid uncertainty about Strait of Hormuz reopening rendered the mood weak. Prospects of another interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve weighed as well on sentiment.
Data showing strong manufacturing and services sector activity in the month of September appears to be limiting market's downside to some extent.
The major averages are all down in negative territory around mid afternoon. The Dow was down 285.35 points or 0.55% at 51,578.34. The S&P 500 slid 48.29 points or about 0.6% to 7,716.35, while the Nasdaq dropped 299.25 points or 1.1% at 26,945.03.
AI-related stocks are exhibiting weakness, while energy stocks are finding support.
CRH shed 6%, Airbnb drifted down 5.7% and McDonalds dropped 5.2%. Alphabet, Broadcomm, GoDaddy, United Airlines Holdings, Sandisk, Intel, Amazon, Micron Technology, Delta Air Lines, Merck and Oracle are down 2%-5%.
Eli Lilly, Dollar Tree, Nvidia, Constellation Brands, Target, Gilead Sciences, Textron and Goldman Sachs also drifted notably lower.
Zebra Technologies, Palo Alto Networks, Ingersoll Rand, Hewlett Packard, Salesforce, T-Mobile, Universal Health Services, Meta, Boeing, IBM, Chevron and Exxon Mobil posted strong gains.
In economic news, data from S&P Global showed the U.S. flash composite PMI rose to 58.4 in September from 56.0 in August, pointing to the strongest expansion in private sector activity since July 2021 and marking a fourth consecutive month of accelerating growth.
The Services sector PMI increased to 58.7 in September from 56.5 in August. Manufacturing PMI accelerated to 56.7 from 53.1 a month earlier.
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