U.S. stocks fell across the board on Aug. 21 as investors prepare for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech from the central bank’s symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
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The benchmark S&P 500 index declined for a fifth consecutive day, falling less than half a percentage point, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index shed 0.30% and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.34% or about 150 points.
The decline comes ahead of Fed Chair Powell’s highly-anticipated speech on Aug. 22 at the central bank’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole. Powell is expected to offer insights into the short-term path for interest rates and the outlook for inflation in America.
Rate Cuts
The Fed Chair’s speech arrives with futures traders pricing in a nearly 80% chance that the U.S. central bank lowers interest rates by 25-basis points at its next policy meeting on Sept. 17. However, bets that the Fed will cut rates three times by year’s end now seem less sure after minutes from the central bank’s July meeting showed policymakers are worried about inflation and tariffs.
Also impacting markets on Aug. 21 were mixed financial results from leading U.S. retailer Walmart (WMT), whose stock fell 5% on the day after the company missed Wall Street’s earnings estimates for the first time since May 2022. There also continues to be selling in mega-cap technology names such as Nvidia (NVDA) and Meta Platforms (META) as investors and traders reconsider their valuations.
The S&P 500 is down almost 1% this week, while the Nasdaq has lost 2.1% and the Dow is down 0.1%.
Is the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust a Buy?
The SPDR S&P 500 exchange-traded fund (SPY) currently has a consensus Moderate Buy rating among 504 Wall Street analysts. That rating is based on 425 Buy, 73 Hold, and six Sell recommendations issued in the last three months. The average SPY price target of $718.24 implies 12.68% upside from current levels.
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