After weeks of defying the Federal Reserve, U.S. markets realized that interest rate hikes are probably here to stay.
U.S markets finally got the Fed's message.
Two officials on Wednesday essentially echoed Fed Chair Jerome Powell's hawkish speech on Tuesday. The Fed's Waller warned that the fight against inflation might be a drawn-out process, "with interest rates higher for longer than some are currently expecting." Likewise,that monetary policy could turn even tighter than the central bank had anticipated.
Investors paid attention. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.68%. The S&P 500 slid 1.11%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.61%. Markets were also battered by a disappointing earnings season: 42 companies in the S&P 500 have issued negative guidance earnings for the first quarter of 2023, according to Refinitiv — a higher proportion than the historical average.
Though unrelated to earnings, Google-parent Alphabet shares tumbled more than 7% Wednesday, after investors were disappointed by the company's demonstration of Bard. They were, perhaps, also concerned after Google released an advertisement for Bard, in which it gave the wrong answer to a prompt about the James Webb Space Telescope. In a wave of downbeat news, investors may indeed need a telescope to find some good news in the near term.
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