US: Stocks down as traders eye high Treasury yields

WALL Street stocks fell on Thursday (Oct 19) as investors monitored rising bond yields and assessed the latest comments by the Federal Reserve chief.

The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note, seen as a proxy for US interest rates, hovered just below five per cent – a level it last breached in 2007.

A reason for the climb, said Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital, is that the market feels “Fed rates will stay high for an extended period of time”.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.8 per cent to end at 33,414.04.

The S&P 500 Index slipped 0.9 per cent to 4,277.99, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index slumped 1.0 per cent to 13,186.18.

Fed chair Jerome Powell said on Thursday that US inflation is “still too high” despite a recent slowdown.

He told a New York conference that if additional data showed “persistently above-trend growth” or a reversal in labour market cooling, the central bank could reconsider its current pause in rate hikes.

“Investors are not feeling confident that the Fed is close to ending its rate-tightening programme,” Sam Stovall of CFRA told AFP.

Among individual companies, shares in electric vehicle maker Tesla dropped 9.3 per cent after its results missed analyst estimates on Wednesday.

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US: Stocks sink as bond yields hit new highs

But streaming company Netflix’s shares surged more than 16 per cent after it reported that its subscriber numbers grew nearly 11 per cent to 247 million in the recently ended quarter. AFP