Wall Street Rally on Pause as Tech Stocks Slide: Markets Wrap

The S&P 500 retreated some 0.5%, with the underlying benchmark fresh off its 39th record high of 2024. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 slumped as much as 1%. FedEx Corp. plunged as the economic bellwether missed profit estimates and cautioned that its business would slow while Lennar Corp. slipped after quarterly home orders fell short of Wall Street expectations. Constellation Energy Corp., the biggest US operator of reactors, jumped to a record on plans to put Three Mile Island back into service.

Treasury yields rose, while a gauge of the dollar strengthened after an Israeli strike in a Beirut suburb. Gold hit another all-time high as traders digested the prospect of more rate cuts boosting the precious metal’s appeal.

The Federal Reserve’s bold half-point rate cut this week boosted confidence that it will be able to engineer a soft landing, but warnings such as the one from FedEx underscore lingering risks to the economy. Fed policymakers have projected a further half point of reductions this year.

“For all the optimism in markets right now, it’s clear that a few concerns still lie under the surface,” said Jim Reid, a strategist at Deutsche Bank AG. “In particular, futures are continuing to price in a more aggressive pace of cuts than was implied by the Fed’s dot plot on Wednesday, so investors think they might need to accelerate those rate cuts if downside risks materialize.”

Traders are braced for the quarterly “triple witching,” when derivatives contracts tied to stocks, index options and futures mature — potentially amplifying market moves. About $5.1 trillion are expiring Friday, according to an estimate from derivatives analytical firm Asym 500.

The options expiry coincides with the rebalancing of benchmark indexes. The event has a reputation for causing sudden price moves as contracts disappear and traders roll over their existing positions or start new ones.

For Bank of America Corp.’s Michael Hartnett, the optimism in equity markets following the Fed’s move is stoking the risk of a bubble, making bonds and gold an attractive hedge against any recession or renewed inflation.

The strategist said stocks are now pricing in more Fed easing and about 18% earnings growth for the S&P 500 by end-2025. It doesn’t “get much better than that for risk, so investors are forced to chase” the rally, Hartnett wrote in a note.

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He also said stocks outside the US and commodities were a good way to play a possible soft economic landing, with the latter being an inflation hedge. International equities are cheaper and starting to outperform US peers, according to Hartnett.

The yen slid more than 1% after Governor Kazuo Ueda proved less hawkish than some traders expected. Ueda signaled little urgency to hike rates, and said that upside risks to inflation are easing.

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Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

The S&P 500 fell 0.5% as of 11:21 a.m. New York time
The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.8%
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3%
The Stoxx Europe 600 fell 1.4%
The MSCI World Index fell 0.6%

Currencies

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.3%
The euro fell 0.2% to $1.1139
The British pound fell 0.1% to $1.3269
The Japanese yen fell 1.2% to 144.38 per dollar

Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin fell 0.2% to $62,931.3
Ether rose 2.9% to $2,537.39

Bonds

The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced four basis points to 3.76%
Germany’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to 2.22%
Britain’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to 3.91%

Commodities

West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.3% to $72.17 a barrel
Spot gold rose 1% to $2,612.61 an ounce

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