STOCK MARKET SNAPSHOT FOR 03/04/2024

NASDAQ-Adv: 1,575 Dec: 2,695 NYSE-Adv: 1,438 Dec: 2,730 (Source: Nasdaq)

Wall Street’s main indexes dropped on Tuesday, dragged down by rising Treasury yields and Tesla, as recent strong economic data fueled uncertainty about the timing of interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.

Shares of rate-sensitive growth stocks including Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab, Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab and Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab fell 0.7% – 1.4% as the U.S. Treasury 10-year yield rose to 4.365%, its highest this year.

Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab also tumbled 5.0% after the automaker missed market expectations for first-quarter deliveries.

The Dow (.DJI), opens new tab and S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab closed lower on Monday after stronger-than-expected manufacturing data from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) raised doubts over the Fed’s three interest rate cuts it had outlined at the last policy meeting.

“ISM creeped above 50 for the first time in 17 months and that should be a good thing, it shows resiliency of the U.S. economy,” said Hugh Anderson, managing director at HighTower Advisors in Las Vegas, but since it diminishes hopes of rate cuts in June, “the market is taking it in a negative fashion.”

“Right now, the fundamentals are supportive of rates staying where they are and possibly even nudging higher.”

The CBOE Volatility index (.VIX), opens new tab, also known as Wall Street’s ‘fear gauge’, touched an over two-week high.

Data on Tuesday showed new orders for U.S.-manufactured goods rebounded more than expected in February, while U.S. job openings held steady at higher levels.

Now the focus is on Friday’s U.S. non-farm payrolls data, which is likely to show job additions slowed in March although average earnings ticked higher compared to the previous month.

Traders are pricing in a near 57% chance of the Fed cutting interest rates by at least 25 basis points in June, down from 64% just a week ago, as per CMEGroup’s FedWatch tool.
A slew of Fed officials including New York Fed President John Williams, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester and San Francisco President Mary Daly are scheduled to speak later in the day.

Shares of UnitedHealth (UNH.N), opens new tab, CVS Health (CVS.N), opens new tab and Humana (HUM.N), opens new tab fell between 7.5% and 14.1% as the U.S. government kept reimbursement rates for providers of Medicare Advantage health plans unchanged, in a setback to insurers.

At 11:56 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI), opens new tab was down 469.83 points, or 1.19%, at 39,097.02, the S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab was down 52.53 points, or 1.00%, at 5,191.24, and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), opens new tab was down 216.89 points, or 1.32%, at 16,179.95.

Nine of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors were trading lower, with the health care index (.SPXHC), opens new tab, down 1.9%, on track for its biggest percentage drop of the year.
Calvin Klein-parent PVH Corp’s shares (PVH.N), opens new tab tumbled 23.3% after the retailer forecast an about 11% drop in first-quarter revenue. Peer Ralph Lauren (RL.N), opens new tab dropped 5.1%.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain-related stocks dropped, tracking an over 6% fall in bitcoin . Exchange operator Coinbase (COIN.O), opens new tab, bitcoin investor MicroStrategy (MSTR.O), opens new tab and crypto miner Riot Platforms (RIOT.O), opens new tab fell between 3.5% and 8.0%.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 3.77-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and for a 3.40-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 22 new 52-week highs and 3 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 39 new highs and 93 new lows.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)