US stocks rebounded Thursday ahead of an afternoon speech from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
(Bloomberg) — US stocks rebounded Thursday ahead of an afternoon speech from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Tech giants, including Nvidia Corp., Meta Platforms Inc. and Tesla Inc. drove the Nasdaq 100 up more than 1%, shaking off a choppy morning session. Dovish-leaning comments from one policymaker and weak consumer spending data may be igniting hopes for some easing of the Federal Reserve’s higher-for-longer messaging. The tech-heavy benchmark remains on track for its worst month since December with US interest rates at the highest in 22 years.
Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said policymakers were at risk of overshooting on interest rates by putting too much emphasis on the idea that steep job losses are needed to quell inflation.
Personal consumption, the main driver of the US economy, rose an annualized 0.8% in the April-to-June period, the weakest advance in over a year. Other data showed GDP rose at an unrevised 2.1% rate during the period while weekly jobless claims came in lighter than estimates.
“Many investors are revising their view around what the longer-run interest rate that is appropriate for the main western economies is,” Joseph Little, global chief strategist at HSBC Asset Management, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
“All the while in the stock market you have this combination of equity investors raising up expectations for 2024 profits,” he added. “It is the consensus view: rising bond yields, you have an equity market trading on higher multiples. It is getting worse and worse. Many challenges at this point.”
The selloff in US Treasuries cooled ahead of Powell’s speech. In the UK, benchmark government bond yields climbed as much as 20 basis points, the largest daily increase in almost a year on a closing basis. September is on track to be the weakest for global bonds since February.
The rally in oil paused Thursday after WTI crude traded above $94 a barrel earlier in the week. The dollar and gold both slid.
Key events this week:
- Fed Chair Jerome Powell town hall meeting with educators while Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin speaks Thursday
- Eurozone CPI, Friday
- Japan unemployment, industrial production, retail sales, Tokyo CPI, Friday
- US consumer spending, wholesale inventories, University of Michigan consumer sentiment, Friday
- ECB President Christine Lagarde speaks, Friday
- New York Fed President John Williams speaks, Friday
Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
- The S&P 500 rose 0.9% as of 12:31 p.m. New York time
- The Nasdaq 100 rose 1.3%
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.6%
- The MSCI World index rose 0.7%
Currencies
- The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.5%
- The euro rose 0.7% to $1.0573
- The British pound rose 0.7% to $1.2216
- The Japanese yen rose 0.3% to 149.20 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
- Bitcoin rose 3.8% to $27,234.54
- Ether rose 4.4% to $1,664.64
Bonds
- The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 4.61%
- Germany’s 10-year yield advanced nine basis points to 2.93%
- Britain’s 10-year yield advanced 13 basis points to 4.48%
Commodities
- West Texas Intermediate crude fell 1.2% to $92.59 a barrel
- Gold futures fell 0.6% to $1,879.70 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Alice Atkins and Boris Korby.
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