NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is slipping Tuesday as oil prices and the bond market crank up the pressure on Wall Street.
The S&P 500 fell 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 440 points, or 0.8%, as of 11:45 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.7% lower.
They felt pressure as the yield on the 10-year Treasury, which is the centerpiece of the U.S. bond market, climbed to 4.99% from 4.97% late Monday and briefly touched 5.04% overnight. It's been jumping to its highest level in years, and Monday was the first time it breached 5% since 2023.
Higher yields mean everyone from the U.S. government to households to businesses must pay more in interest to borrow money, which slows the overall economy. They also make people less willing to pay high prices for stocks because they can earn more from sitting in bonds, which are considered safer investments.
“The result is a market that must work harder to generate earnings growth just as investors become less willing to pay premium valuations for that growth,” according to Darrell Cronk, president of Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
The last time the 10-year yield was consistently above 5% was around the turn of the millennium, and it's been a long march back since it bottomed out below 0.50% in 2020. The pace has accelerated since February, after the war with Iran sent oil prices much higher.
That raised worries about high inflation potentially lasting for years, which are layering atop longstanding concerns about the U.S. government’s massive debt level and other issues.
Oil prices rose further Tuesday following several sharp swings in the morning. The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 2.3% to $108.12 after flipping between $105.10 and $108.76 earlier in the day.
It remains well above its $72 level from early July and from before the war with Iran began in February, as doubt continues about whether the fighting will allow oil tankers to freely exit the Persian Gulf anytime soon through the Strait of Hormuz.
Inflation remains high enough that the widespread expectation is that the Federal Reserve will announce on Wednesday that it will hike the federal funds rate for the first time in three years.
Traders are still betting on a slight chance that the Federal Reserve could hold off on hiking interest rates, though. If it does, the market could swing because investors may see it as a sign that the Fed is less committed to getting inflation lower.
Fed officials will also release forecasts for where they see interest rates heading in upcoming years, providing another opportunity to inject uncertainty into the market.
On Wall Street, stocks of companies that depend on customers having enough spare cash to spend on their products fell to some of the sharper losses.
Chipotle Mexican Grill dropped 5.5%, and United Airlines lost 3.5%.
Dollar Tree, whose customers may have less financial cushion than others to keep spending, fell 4.2%
Dave & Buster’s Entertainment tumbled 17.2% after reporting weaker results for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, several artificial-intelligence stocks held steadier following their worldwide slide the day before, after leaders of the AI industry called for a slowdown in development to address safety issues for humanity.
Nvidia rose 0.6% a day after its 3.4% drop was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500 index. Advanced Micro Devices climbed 2%.
Such stocks led the U.S. market to records for years, but they’ve come under pressure recently on worries that their prices shot too high in the frenzy around AI.
In stock markets abroad, indexes fell across much of Europe and Asia. But for several, the drops were not as sharp as Monday’s caused by the slide for AI stocks.
South Korea’s Kospi index, for example, fell 0.9% following Monday’s 3.3% drop.
AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.
