US: Stocks fall as bond yields climb

WALL Street stocks finished lower Tuesday (Mar 28), shrugging off solid consumer confidence data as US Treasury bond yields climbed.

The Conference Board’s closely watched consumer confidence index increased unexpectedly in March, although it remains below last year’s average.

“While consumers feel a bit more confident about what’s ahead, they are slightly less optimistic about the current landscape,” said Ataman Ozyildirim, senior director for economics at The Conference Board.

Meanwhile, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury note, a proxy for Federal Reserve monetary policy, advanced, pressuring tech shares that are seen as more reliant on debt.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.1 per cent to 32,394.25.

The broad-based S&P 500 slipped 0.2 per cent to 3,971.27, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index lost 0.5 per cent at 11,716.08.

Equities have seen intermittent pressure in recent weeks after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and two other mid-sized US banks fuelled worries about contagion.

Regional banks, which had rallied on Monday, mostly fell Tuesday, KeyCorp down 0.8 per cent, First Republic office 2.5 per cent and PacWest Bancorp shedding 5.0 per cent.

Among other individual companies, Alibaba shot up 14.3 per cent after announcing it will split into six business groups.

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The Hangzhou-based firm has business operations spanning cloud computing, e-commerce, logistics, media and entertainment, and artificial intelligence.

Lyft dropped 7.6 per cent, reversing an early rally, as it announced that former Amazon executive David Risher would be its next chief executive.

Logan Green and John Zimmer, founders of the ride-hailing company, are transitioning into non-executive roles on the board. AFP