Wall Street’s main indexes closed lower on Wednesday, with the Nasdaq leading declines, as technology stocks slumped on worries the Federal Reserve may be cautious about rate cuts after stubbornly strong U.S. inflation data. The TSX edged higher to a fresh record high close.
Data showed consumer spending increased solidly in October, suggesting the U.S. economy maintained its strong pace of growth, but progress on lowering inflation appeared to have stalled.
Traders added to bets the Fed will lower borrowing costs by 25 basis points at its December meeting, according to CME’s FedWatch. However, they anticipate the central bank leaving rates unchanged at its January and March meetings.
Investors were still gauging the impact of President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge on Monday to impose duties of 25% on imports from Mexico and Canada and 10% on Chinese goods unless they halt flows of the deadly opioid fentanyl and illegal migrants into the U.S.
Goldman Sachs said in a note this week an escalation in tariff policy risks delaying the return to 2.0% inflation target.
Investors also assessed data which showed the U.S. economy grew at a solid clip in the third quarter. Weekly jobless claims fell again last week, leaving the door open for another rate cut from the Fed in December.
“Inflation has proven to be a little stickier than the Fed would have liked, which may give them pause with respect to cutting rates,” said Scott Welch, chief investment officer at Certuity. “There are questions around the effects of Trump’s stated tariff policy, which, if implemented could be pretty inflationary and so the Fed is going to have to balance itself between the economic data and the incoming administration’s policy agenda.”
Minutes from the Fed’s November meeting, released on Tuesday, showed policymakers were uncertain about the outlook for interest-rate cuts and how much the current rates were restricting the economy.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 138.25 points at 44,722.06. The S&P 500 index was down 22.89 points at 5,998.74, while the Nasdaq composite was down 115.10 points at 19,060.48.
The benchmark S&P 500 was on track for its biggest one-month rise in a year and its sixth month of gains out of seven, as markets price in the view that Trump’s policies will benefit local businesses and the overall economy.
Gains in Toronto Wednesday were led by the utilities and consumer-related sectors, aided by a fourth straight day of modest easing in bond yields. Investors appeared to grow a little less anxious about the prospect of sweeping U.S. tariffs on imports from Canada given that they are far from a certainty. The S&P/TSX composite index ended up 83.16 points, or 0.3%, at 25,488.30, eclipsing the record closing high it posted on Friday.
The consumer staples sector rose 1.9%, consumer discretionary was up 0.8% and utilities ended 0.9% higher.
In stock moves, shares of fuel distributor Parkland Corp rose 5.1% as the company said it would enter into a stock buyback program.
Alimentation Couche-Tard was another standout, rising 4.3%, as a number of analysts raised their target price on the convenience store operator’s stock.
On Wall Street, Dell slumped 12% and HP dropped almost 6% after downbeat quarterly forecasts, weighing on the Information Technology sector, which dropped 1.2%.
The sentiment spread to megacaps such as Nvidia and Microsoft, while the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index ended 1.8% lower.
The Russell 2000 index was sluggish after hitting a record high earlier in the week. It ended 0.1% higher.
Workday slipped 6.2% after forecasting fourth-quarter subscription revenue below expectations, hit by weaker client spending on its human capital management software.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.64-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 406 new highs and 54 new lows on the NYSE. The S&P 500 posted 79 new 52-week highs and no new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 136 new highs and 71 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 11.40 billion shares ahead of the holiday, compared with the 14.92 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.
U.S. markets are closed for Thanksgiving on Thursday.
Reuters, Globe staff