Wall Street closes with losses as markets await Powell’s speech

The averages declined, impacted by a rise in Treasury bond yields as recession fears eased.

All three of Wall Street’s major indices fell in Thursday’s trading. Stocks dropped, weighed down by technology shares, in a market that is awaiting a speech from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell at Jackson Hole.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, composed of 30 blue-chip companies, dropped 0.43% to 40,712.78 points. The S&P 500, which includes 500 companies, declined 0.89% to 5,570.64 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 1.67% to 17,619.35 points.

The declines were driven by a rise in Treasury bond yields, as recession fears subsided and global central bank officials gathered at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium.

Jerome Powell is expected to provide further signals to the markets on whether the Fed will cut interest rates in September. Futures markets, as tracked by the FedWatch Tool, are currently pricing in a 100% probability of a rate cut next month.

Losses were broad across sectors, with technology companies leading the decline (-2.13%). Within the Dow Jones, most components saw losses, with Intel experiencing the steepest drop (-6.12%), followed by tech giants Amazon (-2.21%) and Microsoft (-2.03%).

In other news, the OECD countries collectively reported a 0.5% growth, maintaining the figure recorded in the first quarter of the year and achieving a 1.8% year-over-year increase.

At the end of the second quarter, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released economic growth figures for this period. The OECD countries collectively reported a 0.5% growth, consistent with the first quarter’s performance, and a 1.8% year-over-year increase.

Between April and June, the economies that reported the most significant GDP growth were Japan, the United States, and Canada, with increases of 0.8%, 0.6%, and 0.5%, respectively.