Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market labored today under the weight of losses in its biggest stocks and ongoing angst about rising Treasury yields.

The 2-yr note yield went as high as 4.09% and the 10-yr note yield went as high as 4.255% with further selling pressure and a disappointing 20-yr bond reopening adding to this week's losses. Those securities settled the cash session at 4.09% and 4.24%, respectively, which helped keep a lid on buy-the-dip interest in the stock market.

Stocks managed to close off their worst levels of the day, which had the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 500 points, yet they suffered from a lack of influential leadership and a general lack of interest from buyers that also permeated the commodities market, particularly oil and precious metals.

The weakest links were the consumer discretionary (-1.8%), information technology (-1.7%), and communication services (-1.4%) sectors, all of which house mega-cap components. The Vanguard Mega-Cap Growth ETF (MGK) was down 1.6%.

Tesla (TSLA 213.65, -4.32, -2.0%), which reports after the close today, joined with Amazon.com (AMZN 184.71, -4.99, -2.6%) to keep the consumer discretionary sector under wraps. McDonald's (MCD 298.46, -16.23, -5.2%), which was dealing with reports of an E. coli outbreak, added to the sector's struggles.

Apple (AAPL 230.76, -5.10, -2.2%) got clipped on iPhone 16 demand concerns and joined with NVIDIA (NVDA 139.56, -4.03, -2.8%) to undercut the information technology sector. Other stragglers were Enphase Energy (ENPH 78.47, -13.76, -14.9%) and Seagate Technology (STX 103.52, -9.12, -8.1%), which faced selling pressure after their earnings reports.

Meta Platforms (META 563.69, -18.32, -3.2%) and Alphabet (GOOG 164.48, -2.34, -1.4%), which report their results next week, were the main drivers behind the underperformance of the communication services sector, which had the benefit of a positive response to AT&T (T 22.50, +1.00, +4.6%) following its earnings report.

There were only two sectors -- real estate (+1.0%) and utilities (+1.0%) -- that gained ground on Wednesday. They did so in more of a defensive-oriented trade that also showed up in the 6.7% gain in the CBOE Volatility Index to 19.41.

Losses for the other six sectors ranged from 0.1% to 0.5%. The industrials sector (-0.3%) was in that grouping, pressured by the loss in Boeing (BA 157.06, -2.82, -1.8%) after its earnings report and sobering view from the new CEO that it will take time to return the company to its former legacy.

Breadth figures underscored today's negative disposition. Decliners led advancers by a nearly 3-to-1 margin at the NYSE and Nasdaq.

• Nasdaq Composite: +21.8% YTD
• S&P 500: +21.5% YTD
• Dow Jones Industrial Average: +12.9% YTD
• S&P Midcap 400: +12.3% YTD
• Russell 2000: +9.2% YTD

Reviewing today's economic data:

• Existing home sales decreased 1.0% month-over-month in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.84 million (Briefing.com consensus 3.90 million) from an upwardly revised 3.88 million (from 3.86 million) in August. Sales were down 3.5% from the same period a year ago.
  • The key takeaway from the report is that more inventory is becoming available, yet it is still a tight market, evidenced by the ongoing increase in the median home price and a very low mortgage delinquency rate.
• MBA Mortgage Applications Index -6.7% wk/wk with refinance applications -8% and purchase applications -5%

Thursday's economic calendar features:

• 08:30 ET: Weekly Initial and Continuing Jobless Claims
• 09:45 ET: Preliminary October S&P Global U.S. Manufacturing and Services PMIs
• 10:00 ET: September New Home Sales