Wall Street was set to open lower on Wednesday due to weakness in megacap growth and technology stocks as Treasury yields rose, spurred by data that showed a resilient demand for labor despite rising interest rates.
After posting a loss in the previous quarter, the benchmark S&P 500 index has gained 5.7% so far this week as yields fell for two straight sessions on softer U.S. economic data, UK’s tax turnaround and Australia’s smaller-than-expected rate hike. [.N]
But the yields on the 10-year Treasury note rose again sharply as traders reassessed their positions based on how aggressively they expect the Federal Reserve will raise rates. [US/]
Adding to the boost, ADP data showed U.S. private employers stepped up hiring in September, indicating more room for the Federal Reserve to remain aggressive in its rate hike stance.
“It’s a little bit more jobs being created or opened than the market was expecting and that leads to the belief that the Fed is not going to be pivoting in November,” said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth in Fairfield, Connecticut.
“A lot of the rally that occurred over the last two days was based on a market that was extremely oversold and a little bit of a believe that the Fed would pivot in November.”
The private payrolls report comes ahead of a more comprehensive and closely watched employment report from the Labor Department for September on Friday.
Rate-sensitive technology and related stocks like Nvidia Corp, Amazon.com, Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc fell nearly 1% each in trading before the bell.
At 08:42 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 275 points, or 0.91%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 34.75 points, or 0.91%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 111.5 points, or 0.96%.
Twitter Inc lost momentum in line with its peers, a day after surging 22% after billionaire Elon Musk decided to proceed with his original $44-billion bid to take the social media company private.
Banks such as Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase & Co slipped 1.2%.
Emerson Electric Co gained 1.7% after a media report that the manufacturing giant is in talks with U.S. buyout firm Blackstone Inc to sell part of its commercial and residential solution business assets.
Shares of U.S.-listed Chinese companies including Alibaba Group and JD.com were up between 0.8% to 2.7%, tracking a jump in their Hong Kong counterparts.
Investors awaited ISM’s non-manufacturing PMI for clues on the strength of the U.S. economy. They were also keeping a close watch on comments on inflation from the Fed’s Atlanta President Raphel Bostic, as several policymakers stick to an aggressive monetary policy.
