Wall Street indexes slip amid interest rate worries - RTHK
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Wall Street indexes slip amid interest rate worries

2024-10-08 HKT 05:47
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  • Stocks were down around 1 percent on all three major Wall Street Indices. Photo: Reuters
    Stocks were down around 1 percent on all three major Wall Street Indices. Photo: Reuters
Wall Street's three major indexes closed down around 1% on Monday while Treasury yields rose, as traders tamped down bets for Federal Reserve interest-rate easing and worried about the Middle East conflict's impact on oil prices.

Investors also braced for another big hurricane, Milton, which is expected to hit the United States this week.

Further dampening sentiment on Monday was an order from a US judge for market heavyweight Alphabet's Google to overhaul its mobile-app business to give Android phone users more options. Analyst reports also spurred selling of Amazon.com and Apple Inc.

"It's a combination of things over the last couple of days: the jobs report, the hurricane damage, the elevated energy prices and negative comments about some of the large-cap tech names," said Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles.

"All of that combined just makes for a nervous day, and the Google headlines tipped things over to more aggressive selling in the last hour."

James pointed to the Middle East conflict as a concern for US investors who are worried about the war's economic impact, including rising oil prices.

Investors continue to fret about how Israel would respond to Iran's missile strikes. On Monday, Lebanon's armed group Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel's city of Haifa while Israeli forces looked poised to expand ground raids into south Lebanon.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 398 points, or 0.9%, to 41,954, the S&P 500 lost 55 points, or 1%, to 5,695 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 213 points, or 1.2%, to 17,923.

Among the S&P 500's 11 major industry indexes, only energy advanced, finishing up 0.4%.

US crude futures settled up 3.7% in their fifth-straight advance on concerns about Middle East supply disruptions. (Reuters)

Wall Street indexes slip amid interest rate worries