Major US equity indices opened lower on Thursday, with the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) retreating after five straight days of gains to record high levels.
Against the backdrop of Wednesday’s upbeat US economic indicators, the Fed Chair Jerome Powell that the Fed may raise interest rates past ‘Neutral’ and pushed the US Treasury bond yields higher across the board on Wednesday.
In fact, the yields on the benchmark 10-year government bond recorded its biggest daily jump since the 2016 US Presidential election and climbed to the highest level since 2011, around 3.22%, which eventually curbed investors’ appetite for riskier assets – like equities.
Today’s better-than-expected weekly jobless claims data, coming in to show an unexpected decline by 8,000 to 207K, or near multi-decade lows, also did little to support the sentiment and provide any fresh bullish impetus.
Despite a modest pull-back, the longer-term bullish trend remains intact, though market participants see limited room for any further upside ahead of the third quarter earnings season.
In the meantime, Friday’s official monthly jobs report, popularly known as NFP and which tends to infuse volatility across global financial markets, will be looked upon for near-term direction for the markets.
At the time of writing, the DJIA was down around 130-points to 26,700 and the broader S&P 500 Index slipped nearly 14-points to 2,912. Meanwhile, tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index underperformed the markets and lost over 70-points to 7,954.
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