Wall Street indexes slip with interest rates, Middle East in focus
Updated with preliminary prices at market close
By Sinéad Carew and Lisa Pauline Mattackal
Oct 7 (Reuters) -U.S. stock indexes closed lower 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.
While waiting for quarterly earnings season and fresh economic data, investors also braced for another big hurricane, Milton, which is expected to hit the United States this week. Relief efforts are under way after Helene, a Category-4 hurricane that killed more than 200 people across six states.
Further dampening sentiment on Monday was an order from a U.S. judge for market heavyweight Alphabet's GOOGL.O Google to overhaul its mobile-app business to give Android phone users more options.
After Friday's stronger-than-expected jobs report, traders pulled back from bets for a 50-basis-point rate cut in November. They were pricing in an 86% chance of a 25-basis-point cut and a roughly 14% chance the central bank would not cut rates at all, according to the CME's FedWatch tool.
The change in rate-cut expectations caused U.S. Treasury yields to rally, with the yield on benchmark 10-year notes US10YT=RR exceeding 4% for the first time in two months.
Besides next month's Fed meeting, investors are waiting for the Consumer Price Index inflation reading for September and the kickoff of third-quarter earnings season with reports from banks, both due this week.
"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 also pointed to Middle East conflict as a concern for U.S. 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.
According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 54.90 points, or 0.95%, to end at 5,696.17 points, while the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC lost 213.94 points, or 1.18%, to 17,924.49. The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 398.71 points, or 0.95%, to 41,951.31.
A big drag on the S&P came from Amazon.com AMZN.O after a Wells Fargo downgrade. Amazon's decline also pressured the consumer discretionary sector .SPLRCD.
Shares of Pfizer PFE.N rose after a report that activist investor Starboard Value has taken a roughly $1-billion stake in the drugmaker.
Air Products and Chemicals APD.N gained sharply on a report that activist hedge fund Mantle Ridge has built a position in the company.
Goldman Sachs raised its 2024 year-end S&P 500 .SPX target to 6,000 from 5,600, and lowered its odds of a U.S. recession to 15% from 20%.
Reporting by Sinéad Carew, Lisa Mattackal and Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Rod Nickel
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