Dow Jones Stock Market Today – Stocks Close Lower as Bond Yields Creep Higher

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Stocks fell Wednesday as rising Treasury yields led to a selloff in tech names.

The
DOW JONES GLO(BA)L/DJIA”>
Dow Jones Industrial Average

 slid 121 points, or 0.4%, while the 

S&P 500

 slipped 1.3%, and the

Nasdaq Composite

 declined 2.7%.

Optimism about the fight against Covid-19—President
Joe Biden
promised enough vaccines for all U.S. adults by May—and fiscal stimulus—a $1.9 trillion relief package continued to progress through the Senate—seemed ready to lift the markets Wednesday morning. But the 10-year yield started rising again, to 1.459%, causing tech stocks, in particular to decline.

“U.S. equities are struggling to find direction after a strong start to the week,” writes Stephen Innes, Chief Global Market Strategist at Axi. “Despite headline weakness in indexes, price action remains constructive as rotation into more cyclical pockets of the market out of expensive growth remains a steady theme.”

Private payrolls rose by 117,000 in February, according to the ADP employment report. Economists had been expecting a gain of 225,000 new private-sector payroll jobs in February. That comes ahead of Friday’s closely watched government jobs report.

The

Stoxx Europe 600

closed slightly higher, while the
FTSE UK/UKX”>
FTSE 100 index

rose 0.9% after Chancellor of the Exchequer
Rishi Sunak
‘s budget address. 

Leading gains in Asia, Hong Kong’s

Hang Seng Index

climbed 2.7%, while China’s

CSI 300 index

added nearly 2%. Those markets were rebounding from Tuesday’s losses, after a top Chinese banking regulator warned of risks from the country’s property market and bubbles in developed equities.

Etsy

(ticker: ETSY) was the weakest performer on the S&P 500 with shares off by 12.5% amid the tech selloff.

Vir Biotechnology

(VIR) shares plunged 27.6% after announcing that a data and safety monitoring board recommended ending a trial of its experimental antibody therapy in hospitalized Covid-19 patients.

Shares of

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

(ticker: HPE) gained 0.3% after the enterprise-computing hardware company reported better-than-expected profits and raised its outlook.

Las Vegas Sands

 (LVS) rose 1.6% after agreeing to sell its Las Vegas assets to private equity buyers for more than $6 billion.

Lyft

 (LYFT) shares rose 8.2% after the company said it just saw its best week of ridership since last March.

Roku 

(ROKU) shares were down 5.2% despite KeyBanc Capital Markets upgrading the stock to Overweight from Sector Weight.

Eaton

 (ETN) shares rose 1% after Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to Overweight from Equal-Weight.

Alcoa

 (AA) shares rose 12.1% after Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock to Buy from Sell.

Rocket Cos. (RKT) dropped 32.7% following Tuesday’s massive gain after RBC downgraded the stock to Sector Perform from Outperform.

Write to Carleton English at carleton.english@dowjones.com

 

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