U.S. stocks traded lower on Tuesday, pressured by rising bond yields that offset hopes in the Middle East from the report of Jordan’s King Abdullah to host Biden, Palestinian Authority President and Egypt’s President to deal with continued humanitarian assistance for the Palestinians.
Not long after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.21% to 33,912.33 points, while the S&P 500 lost 0.27% to 4,361.64 points and Nasdaq declined 0.48% to 13,502.36 points. Dow Jones turned to slightly positive afterward, while the remaining two indices stayed in negative territory.
Pressure in the market came after the report of US retail sales that came in hotter-than-expected in September at 0.7% MoM, well above 0.3% expected and also slightly higher than a 0.6% increase in August. Meanwhile, core retail sales rose 0.6% MoM, compared to 0.2% expected and 0.6% in August.
Strong consumer spending posted a negative impact to the market as it adds to the case for the Federal Reserve to consider raising interest rates one more time before the end of this year.
U.S. 10-year Treasury yield rose over 4.80% on Tuesday after the report of retail sales. It had been moving around 4.6-4.7% in the past few days.
The market has yet to price-in a positive factor from the report of the U.S. President Joe Biden scheduled to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah, Palestinian Authority President and Egypt’s President to discuss humanitarian assistance for the Palestinians, which should lower the damage and casualties from the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas fighters.
