Highlights
Rebounding bond yields, rising oil prices, and bad company news tanked stocks Thursday. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 1.3 percent, the S&P 500 fell 0.9 percent, and the Nasdaq was off 1.0 percent. Bond yields jumped, the dollar was mixed but overall nearly flat, and oil prices rose.
Stocks were hit by the rebound in bond yields on Thursday after Wednesday’s dip in yields on the surprising announcement by the US Treasury that it would step up its purchases of its long-term debt. On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened to increase the buybacks further and downplayed fiscal worries but the market was not believing it would work. Risk appetite also suffered from rising oil prices on concern that the US-Iran war remains stalemated.
Big misses in same-store sales from Walmart and losses in Home Depot and Boeing weighed on the major indexes. Weakness in the Magnificent Seven hit too, along with a pullback in Moderna after the biotech rallied on Wednesday on bullish clinical news.