ISM services industry data beat estimates Bed Bath & Beyond shares sink after CFO’s death Wall St is down for three straight weeks Dow down 0.55%, S&P 500 down 0.41%, Nasdaq down 0.74%
NEW YORK, Sept 6 (Reuters) – Wall Street’s main indexes closed lower on Tuesday, the first session after the U.S. Labor Day holiday and summer vacation, as traders weighed fresh economic data in choppy trading. A survey by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) showed that the US services sector rose in August for a second straight month amid stronger growth in orders and employment, while supply bottlenecks and price pressures eased. read more However, numbers from S&P Global showed that the services sector PMI fell short of preliminary estimates for August. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up A stronger-than-expected reading for the US services sector fueled expectations that the Federal Reserve will continue to raise interest rates to tame inflation. “The Fed has reduced us to a very heavy reliance on data, so any information that comes out from investors will be looking at not just the absolute level, but trying to infer what that means when the Fed meets,” said Carol Schleif. deputy chief investment officer in the BMO Family Office. “One of the things that worries investors is that there is very little to push the markets either steadily or consistently down,” he added. Concerns about Europe’s energy supply and how COVID-19 lockdowns will affect China’s economy also sent markets lower on Tuesday, said Shawn Cruz, chief trading strategist at TD Ameritrade. “A lot of uncertainty and volatility is not coming from the US, it’s actually coming from overseas.” The tech-heavy Nasdaq (.IXIC) suffered its seventh straight day of losses, its longest losing streak since November 2016. Traders see a 74 percent chance of a third straight 75 basis point rate hike at the Fed’s policy meeting later this month, according to CME’s FedWatch Tool. The focus will be on Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech on Thursday, as well as US consumer price data next week for clues on the path of monetary policy. Markets started September on a weak note, extending a slide that began in late August, as hawkish comments from Fed policymakers and data signaling US economic momentum fueled fears of aggressive rate hikes. The S&P is down nearly 18% so far this year, while the Nasdaq is down more than 26% as rising interest rates hit megacap tech and growth stocks. Among S&P major sectors, energy (.SPNY) and communications services (.SPLRCL) were the worst performers, while defense utilities (.SPLRCU) and real estate (.SPLRCR) rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 173.14 points, or 0.55%, to 31,145.3. the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 16.07 points, or 0.41%, to 3,908.19. and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) fell 85.96 points, or 0.74%, to 11,544.91. The CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX), known as Wall Street’s fear gauge, touched a nearly two-month high of 27.80 before closing at 26.91. Bed Bath & Beyond Inc ( BBBY.O ) fell 18.4 percent after Chief Financial Officer Gustavo Arnal fell from the Tribeca skyscraper in New York. read more Digital World Acquisition Corp ( DWAC.O ) fell 11.4 percent after Reuters reported that the blank check buyout firm that had agreed to merge with former U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media company failed to secure enough support from investors shareholders for an extension to complete the deal. Volume on US exchanges was 10.71 billion shares, compared to the 10.46 billion average for the full session over the past 20 trading days. Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a ratio of 2.46 to 1. On the Nasdaq, a ratio of 2.12 to 1 favored the decliners. The S&P 500 hit no new 52-week highs and 29 new lows. the Nasdaq Composite recorded 19 new highs and 317 new lows. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Reporting by Carolina Mandl in New York, and additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru. Edited by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Maju Samuel and Richard Chang Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
