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S&P 500 in Volatile Trade as Powell Pushes Back Against Fed Pause

Published 02/11/2022, 19:22
Updated 02/11/2022, 19:22
© Reuters.

© Reuters.

By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com -- The S&P 500 swung between gains and losses Wednesday as the Federal Reserve lifted interest rates for a fourth time in a row.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.62% or 203 points, the Nasdaq was down 1.48%, and the S&P 500 fell 1.01 %.

The Fed raised its benchmark rate by 0.75%, and suggested that future hikes will face a higher threshold, but Fed chairman Jerome Powell pushed back against the idea of a Fed pause.

“[I]t is very premature to be thinking about pausing,” Powell said in a press conference on Wednesday. “We have a ways to go,” the Fed chief added, though he did tee up the idea of slowing the pace of rate hikes at future meetings.

The somewhat hawkish remarks from Powell cooled the earlier optimism following the release of the monetary policy, which has “changed significantly,” from the prior statement, Stifel said in a note, adding that it was a “clear signal that wave of 75bp hikes is over.”

Treasury yields remained in red but moved off session lows, putting pressure on rate-sensitive sectors including tech.

Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) were down more than 1%, while Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) slipped nearly 3%.

Semiconductor stocks were also pushed lower as Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) gave up some gains after reporting quarterly results and guidance that missed analysts’ expectations.

Airbnb Inc (NASDAQ:ABNB), meanwhile, fell more than 10% as fourth-quarter guidance that fell just short of estimates overshadowed quarterly results that beat on the bottom line. 

Latest comments

What do they want the consumer to do when they can't afford to buy anything as it is?
I don't think there's a central banker in the whole world knows how to curb this inflation when it hasn't got anything to do with consumer demand. Retail sales falling, house prices falling, energy prices increasing because of outside factors. Yet these bozzo's think that putting interest rates up will cure everything
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