U.S. stocks are falling as investors weigh outlook on rates

  • Investing.com
  • Stock Market News
U.S. stocks are falling as investors weigh outlook on rates
Credit: © Reuters.

By Liz Moyer

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks were falling as investors considered the chances of more interest rate increases in the coming months.

At 9:56 ET (14:56 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 43 points or 0.1%, while the S&P 500 was down 0.4% and the NASDAQ Composite was down 0.7%.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday that it will take a while to bring inflation in check though he acknowledged disinflationary forces were at work after successive rate hikes last year. Last week the Fed raised rates by another quarter of a percentage point.

Futures traders are forecasting another quarter-point hike in March and another in May, pushing the benchmark rate above 5%. Fed officials have also forecast the terminal rate to reach above 5%.

Several Fed officials are expected to speak this week, including New York Fed President John Williams, who appeared at a conference today. He said financial conditions look to be in line with what policymakers want to see.  

Investors were also focused on corporate earnings. Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS ) will report later today. Shares of Uber Technologies Inc (NYSE: UBER ) were up 3% after the ride-hailing app beat expectations for fourth-quarter earnings and sales.

Shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT ) rose 2.4% after it revealed a generative artificial intelligence capability to its Bing search engine. Generative AI has become a hot topic since OpenAI’s ChatGPT sprang onto the scene.

Activision Blizzard Inc (NASDAQ: ATVI ) shares fell 2% after U.K. antitrust regulators said its planned merger with Microsoft could harm competition.

Oil rose. Crude Oil WTI Futures were up 0.9% to $77.81 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures crude rose 0.6% to $84.17 a barrel. Gold Futures fell 0.1% to $1,883.

Add Chart to Comment

Comment Guidelines

We encourage you to use comments to engage with users, share your perspective and ask questions of authors and each other. However, in order to maintain the high level of discourse we’ve all come to value and expect, please keep the following criteria in mind: 

  • Enrich the conversation
  • Stay focused and on track. Only post material that’s relevant to the topic being discussed.
  • Be respectful. Even negative opinions can be framed positively and diplomatically.
  •  Use standard writing style. Include punctuation and upper and lower cases.
  • NOTE: Spam and/or promotional messages and links within a comment will be removed
  • Avoid profanity, slander or personal attacks directed at an author or another user.
  • Don’t Monopolize the Conversation. We appreciate passion and conviction, but we also believe strongly in giving everyone a chance to air their thoughts. Therefore, in addition to civil interaction, we expect commenters to offer their opinions succinctly and thoughtfully, but not so repeatedly that others are annoyed or offended. If we receive complaints about individuals who take over a thread or forum, we reserve the right to ban them from the site, without recourse.
  • Only English comments will be allowed.

Perpetrators of spam or abuse will be deleted from the site and prohibited from future registration at Investing.com’s discretion.

Drop an image here or Supported formats: *.jpg, *.png, *.gif up to 5mb

Error: File type not supported

Drop an image here or

100
Please try another search