Negative Sentiment Drives Trading In Last Week of Third Quarter

Barry Adams
25 Sep, 2023
New York City

Benchmark indexes on Wall Street were little changed as investors debated future direction of interest rates and hunted for bargains in beaten down tech stocks. 

Market indexes traded sideways on the first day of the final week in September and popular indexes are expected to close down for the second month in a row. 

Market indexes have struggled after the Federal Reserve signaled rates are likely to stay higher despite the recent inflation cooling trend, but prices are rising at a faster than the Fed's target rate of 2%. 

Rate hike worries have negatively impacted the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq Composite index for the second month in a row. 

The Nasdaq is down 6% and the S&P 500 index has declined 4% in the month so far, after the higher rates dampened the earnings outlook. 

However, for the year so far, the S&P 500 index is up 13% and the Nasdaq Composite has  advanced 27%. 

The rate hike worries was also visible in European trading and the yield on German, French and Italian bonds jumped to 11-year highs. 

The European Central Bank is also expected to keep higher rates  for longer because despite multiple rate hikes in the currency union inflation is still significantly above the central bank's target rate of 2%. 

 

U.S. Indexes & Yields 

The S&P 500 index increased 0.5% to 4,349.05 and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.8% to 13,325.59. 

The yield on 2-year Treasury notes hovered at 5.12%, 10-year Treasury notes inched higher to 4.53% and 30-year Treasury bonds edged up to 4.64%. 

Crude oil increased $0.45 to $90.48 a barrel and natural gas prices declined 1 cent to $2.60 a thermal unit. 

The dollar index edged higher to 105.83, the level last seen in November 2022 and extended gains from the low of 99.85 on July 13, 2023.  

 

U.S. Stock Movers 

Movie studio operators traded higher after writers' union reached a preliminary agreement with studios. 

Warner Bros Discovery, Paramount Global, Amazon and Disney traded slightly higher. 

HP Inc decreased .2% to $26.77 after Berkshire Hathaway sold 4.8 million shares held by the conglomerate for approximately for $130 million. 

Nio Inc decreased 4.3% to after the company said it is considering to raise $3 billion.