Stock Market News: Dow Is Falling Amid Rising Bond Yields
The stock market’s declines accelerated in Friday morning trading.
The Dow slid nearly 400 points, or 0.9%. The S&P 500 dropped 1.3%. The Nasdaq Composite shed 2%. Roughly 412 S&P 500 stocks were falling.
With virtually no news on the docket and trading thin for the holiday-shortened week, technology stocks were an especially large drag. The S&P’s tech sector was down 1.8%, followed by consumer discretionary with a decline of 1.6%. The communication services sector was down 1.2%.
On the flip side, energy was up 0.6%, with WTI crude oil futures up 0.8%.
The iShares Semiconductor ETF was down 1.9%, while the Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF was down 3%. Wall Street flocked to chips and megacap technology stocks earlier this month, but now the former favorites are leading the rest of the market lower.
Citi’s U.S. equity strategist Scott Chronert writes that valuations and implicit growth expectations have set a high bar for the stock market in the year ahead.
“Overall, this setup, plus the lack of real correction in some time, does leave the market more susceptible to increasing bouts of volatility,” Chronert writes. “If the fundamental story holds, we would be buyers of first half pullbacks in the S&P 500.”