Stocks fell and bond yields jumped on Wednesday as Wall Street took minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last policymakers meeting as a hint that the central bank is set to move quickly to raise interest rates this year as it tackles inflation.
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The S&P 500 fell 1.9%, its biggest drop since September, as technology companies led a broad market slide. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite fell 3.3%, its worst decline since February. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.1%, pulling back from the record high it set a day earlier.
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The S&P 500 fell 92.96 points to 4,700.58. The Dow fell 392.54 points to 36,407.11. The Nasdaq dropped 522.54 points to 15,100.17. Small-company stocks also posted sizable losses. The Russell 2000 fell 74.87 points, or 3.3%, to 2,194.
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Bond yields moved higher after the minutes from the Fed meeting came out. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, a benchmark for setting rates on mortgages and many other kinds of loans, rose to 1.70% soon after the minutes were released, from 1.68% just before. It hasn’t been at 1.70% since April.
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According to the Fed minutes, officials voiced concerns at their meeting last month that inflation, which has risen to four-decade highs, was expanding into more sections of the economy and might endure longer than projected. The Fed policymakers also judged that the employment market in the United States was nearly at a robust enough level that the Fed’s low-interest-rate policies were no longer required.
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Nonetheless, Wall Street appeared to interpret the minutes as a warning that the central bank will be more active in taking down the economic stimulus programs put in place after the pandemic, perhaps resulting in a speedier path to higher interest rates.