Wall St stumbles as bond yields rise; McDonald's, Coca-Cola slip

Reuters

Wall St stumbles as bond yields rise; McDonald's, Coca-Cola slip

Oct 23, 2024 at 4:34 pm GMT

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McDonald's falls after E. coli outbreak

Coca-Cola sees revenue boost from rising soda demand

Boeing falls after results; contract vote awaited

Tesla earnings expected after the bell

Indexes down: Dow 0.70%, S&P 500 0.66%, Nasdaq 1.09%

Updated at 11:55 a.m. ET/1555 GMT

By Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Purvi Agarwal

Oct 23 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes fell on Wednesday as worries of a less dovish Federal Reserve lifted Treasury yields, pressuring megacap stocks and amplifying losses in McDonald's and Coca-Cola shares.

McDonald'sMCD.N slumped 4.7% after an E. coli infection linked to itsQuarter Pounder hamburgers killed one and sickened many.

Coca-Cola KO.N dipped 2.3% after the company reiterated its annual profit growth forecast despite expecting higher revenue. The broader Consumer Discretionary .SPLRCD sector dropped 1.1%.

Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields were at three-month highs, putting stocks under pressure. Markets are reassessingthe size of interest-rate cuts over the next several months against the backdrop of strong economic data and the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

Rate-sensitive megacaps took a hit, with Nvidia NVDA.O down 2.2% and Apple off 2%, pulling Information Technology .SPLRCT stocks 1% lower and dragging on the tech-laden Nasdaq.

"The move higher in yields has actually been going on ever since the (Federal Reserve) meeting. It's just in the past week or so that the market has woken up to it," said Michael O'Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading, adding that the 10-year yield is likely to stabilize around the 4.2% level.

"You also have to balance the fact that the U.S. equity market is expensive on a valuation basis, so we could (be) due for profit-taking."

Tesla TSLA.O, the first of the so-called Magnificent Seven companies scheduled to report results after market close, lost 1%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 300.90 points, or 0.70%, to 42,623.99, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 38.38 points, or 0.66%, to 5,812.82, and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC lost 201.84 points, or 1.09%, to 18,371.29.

The benchmark index is set to log its third consecutive day of decline, if losses hold.

U.S. markets are near record-high levels, but a combination of earnings, a changing monetary policy outlook and the upcoming presidential election will test the sustainability of the recent rally and could trigger some market volatility, analysts said.

The Fed's Beige Book is on the radar later in the day.

Richmond Federal Reserve President Thomas Barkin said the central bank's fight to return inflation to its 2% target may take longer than expected to achieve, limiting how far interest rates can be cut.

Boeing BA.N dropped 2.3% after reporting a quarterly loss of $6 billion owing to a crippling strike. Factory workers at the troubled planemaker will vote later in the day on a new contract proposal that could end the more than five-week-long standoff.

Meanwhile, StarbucksSBUX.O pared steep premarket losses to drop 0.5% aftersuspending its annual forecast on Tuesday.

Semiconductorcompany Texas Instruments TXN.O gained 3.5% after its third-quarter profit beat forecasts, while AT&T T.N rose 3.8% aftergaining more wireless subscribers than expected in the third quarter.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 3.17-to-1 ratio on the NYSE, and by a 2.66-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 17 new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 43 new highs and 64 new lows.

Reporting by Lisa Mattackal and Purvi Agarwal in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Pooja Desai

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