Stock Market Today: Wall Street Falls as Its Blistering Rally Cools Some More

Economy

By Associated Press

Published 5 months ago on

October 23, 2024

Wall Street's rally loses steam as stocks fall, with the S&P 500 on track for its first three-day losing streak since September. (AP/Peter Morgan)

McDonald's stock drops 5.3% after its Quarter Pounder burgers are linked to an E. coli outbreak affecting 49 people in 10 states.
Boeing faces a crucial day, reporting a $6 billion loss and awaiting results of a machinists' vote that could end a month-long strike.
Rising Treasury yields pressure stocks, with the 10-year yield climbing to 4.23%, making investors less willing to pay high stock prices.

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NEW YORK — U.S. stocks are falling Wednesday as some more steam comes out of Wall Street’s huge, record-breaking rally.

The S&P 500 was 1% lower in afternoon trading. It’s coming off two small losses since setting an all-time high on Friday and is on track for its first three-day losing streak since early September. The pullback follows a superb run where the index rallied to six straight winning weeks, its longest such streak of the year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 431 points, or 1%, as of 1:11 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.7% lower as Big Tech stocks were among the market’s heaviest weights.

McDonald’s Linked to E. Coli Outbreak

McDonald’s helped pull the market lower and dropped 5.3% after federal health officials linked its Quarter Pounder burgers with an E. coli outbreak that’s affected at least 49 people in 10 states. Investigators are still trying to find what specific ingredient is contaminated, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said McDonald’s stopped using fresh slivered onions and quarter pound beef patties in several states while the investigation is ongoing.

Coca-Cola fell 2% even though it reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The company benefited from higher prices for its products, but a lot of focus was on how much product the company shipped during the quarter, and that fell short of some estimates.

Boston Scientific also weakened despite delivering better-than-expected quarterly results. It fell 2.1% after saying it’s temporarily pausing its trial of a treatment for persistent atrial fibrillation to assess “a few unanticipated observations.” The medical technology company said it intends to resume enrollment in the near term.

Boeing Faces Crucial Day

Boeing sank 2.4% in what could be one of the most consequential days in years for the troubled aerospace manufacturer.

The company reported a loss of more than $6 billion for the latest quarter, as it waits to see the results of a vote by machinists later in the day that could end a strike that’s crippled aircraft production for more than a month. Boeing stock has lost 40% this year.

Helping to keep the losses for indexes in check was AT&T, which rose 3.2% after reporting stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected

Texas Instruments climbed 3.6% after the semiconductor company reported stronger profit and revenue than analysts expected. While revenue from industrial users declined from the prior quarter, CEO Haviv Ilan said all other end markets grew.

Northern Trust rallied 7.8% after likewise topping analysts’ estimates for profit and revenue in the latest quarter.

Rising Treasury Yields Pressure Stocks

U.S. stocks have generally been slowing their record-breaking momentum this week under increasing pressure from rising Treasury yields.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose again Wednesday to 4.23% from 4.21% late Tuesday and from just 4.08% Friday. Higher yields for Treasurys can make investors less willing to pay high prices for stocks, which critics say already look too expensive after they rose faster than corporate profits.

Treasury yields have been climbing after a raft of reports have shown the U.S. economy remains stronger than expected. That’s good news for Wall Street, because it bolsters hopes that the economy can escape from the worst inflation in generations without the painful recession that many had worried was inevitable.

Traders are now largely expecting the Fed to cut its main interest rate by half a percentage point more through the end of the year, according to data from CME Group. A month ago, some of those same traders were betting on the federal funds rate ending the year as much as half a percentage point lower than that.

In stock markets abroad, Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.8% despite a surge for Tokyo Metro Co.’s stock in Japan’s largest market debut since SoftBank Corp. went public in 2018.

Chinese markets rose for a second day after the central bank cut its one-year and five-year Loan Prime Rates on Monday. Indexes rose 1.3% in Hong Kong and 0.5% in Shanghai, while European markets were modestly lower.