U.S. stocks closed near the session’s low Thursday, after a poor Treasury debt auction and after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned higher interest rates might be needed to tame inflation. That put an end to the S&P 500’s longest winning streak in two years.
How stock finished
Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
shed 220.33 points, or 0.7%, ending at 33,891.94, after touching a session low of 33,859.77 in afternoon trade.
S&P 500
SPX
fell 35.43 points, or 0.8%, closing at 4,347.35.
The Nasdaq Composite
COMP
closed 128.97 points lower, or 0.9%, at 13,521.45.
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 rose for the eighth straight session, while the Nasdaq Composite rose for the ninth. For both indexes, it was the longest winning streak since November 2021, Dow Jones Market Data show. What drove markets U.S. stocks closed near the session lows Thursday after a $24 billion sale of 30-year Treasury bonds went poorly. Stocks initially opened higher, but gave up further ground after Fed Chair Jerome Powell, in a speech at the International Monetary Fund, suggested interest rates might not be high enough yet to bring inflation sustainably down to the central bank’s 2% annual target. Powell said the Fed’s 2% goal “is not assured: inflation has given us a few head fakes.” Recent volatility in longer duration Treasurys has been credited with driving the action in stocks lately. “It’s still a focus and is probably what is taking a little bit of the steam away from the equity rally today,” said James Ragan, director of wealth management Research at D.A. Davidson, in an phone interview. “It’s the fear that those higher rates out on the curve will act as a brake on the economy,” Ragan said. In response to a question at the IMF, Powell said there probably are a half-dozen explanati …
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