Stock Market Today: Stocks mixed as Nasdaq recoups; Target shares in focus
Target's weak results, tariff worries and deficit concerns weigh on stocks overall. Bond yields rise.
Updated 2:39 p.m. ET
Stocks went toe to toe with the bond market. The bond market was winning this afternoon.
Bond yields were jumping after a $16-billion auction of 20-year Treasury bonds was not well received, pushing bond yields overall higher.
The higher bond yields gutted technology rally and pushed the overall market lower.
At 2:20 p.m. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 66 points to 5,875. The Nasdaq Composite Index has given up a decent rally and had fallen 162 points to 18,981. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 648 points to 42,980.
What happened in Treasuries
The 20-year auction produced a high yield of $5.047%, up from 4.81% at a month-auction. In response, the 30-year yield jumped to 5.0815% from 4.979% on Tuesday and 4.95% on Friday.
The 10-year yield hit 4.589%, up from Tuesday's 4.49% and the highest since hitting 4.61% in February.
This one is a big determinant of mortgage rates and will pressure home sales. Mortgage News Daily said it's seeing 30-year rate around 7.1%, the highest level since early April.
There is "a feeling of disillusionment with the fiscal outlook" as bond investors watch "Congress debate spending more money on one thing vs spending more money on another thing," wrote Matthew Graham, who comments on bonds and the bond market for the mortgage site.
Morgan Stanley is worried
Meanwhile, investment bank Morgan Stanley (MS) offered its mid-year look at interest rates and the economy.
Rates will be sticky, Chief US Economist Michael Gapen wrote in his forecast.
The effective U.S. tariff rate will remain at 13%, and he does see the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates until year.
Updated 12:47 p.m. EDT
It's a tale of two markets this afternoon.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index, the Dow Jones industrials and the Russell 2000 index are still lower on the day.
The Nasdaq Composite and Nasdaq-100 indexes are now solidly in the green.
The likely sources of strength for both indexes are:
- Google-parent Alphabet (GOOGL) , up 4.7% to $171.64.
- Nvidia NVDA, up 2% to $137.18
- Facebook parent Meta Platforms (META) , up 0.9% to $643.09.
Investors like what they heard at Alphabet's I/O developer conference. Among other things, Alphabet plans to overhaul its search engine with “AI Mode” to rival AI chatbots like ChatGPT, The Wall Street Journal noted.
Weighing on the the S&P 500 and the Dow are UnitedHealth (UNH) , Nike (NKE) and American Express (AXP) .
Nine of 11 S&P 500 sectors were lower today, with utilities suffering the biggest losses. The 30-year Treasury yield has topped 5.4%. The 10-year yield was up 4.546%.
Communications services, which includes Alphabet, and information technology, including Nvidia were the big winning sectors.
UnitedHealth shares slump again
UnitedHealth shares were off 4.5% to $307.22 after a Guardian report alleging the company secretly paid nursing homes in bonuses not to transfer patients to hospitals.
That helped saved the company millions. Critics say patients have suffered.
The company said the allegations are "varifiably false."
UnitedHealth shares are down 39% this year.
Updated: 10:58 a.m. EDT
Just before 11 a.m. EDT Wall Street is broadly lower. The Dow 30 are off 0.5% and the Russell 2000 is down nearly 1.2%.
Bill Ackman's Pershing Square put a big chunk into a major technology company, according to the firm's recent SEC 13-F, TheStreet's Silin Chen reports. Have a look here.
Updated: 10 a.m. ET
Stocks opened broadly lower on Wednesday, pushed lower by weak earnings from retailers Target (TGT) and TJX (TJX) and worries about rising interest rates.
The losses, if they hold, would be the second consecutive market decline.
