US stocks slammed into reverse on Thursday after a Federal Reserve official said it may deliver none of the cuts to interest rates this year that Wall Street has been banking on if inflation worsens, per the AP.
- The Dow fell 530 points, or 1.3%, to 38,596.
- The S&P 500 fell 64 points, or 1.2%, to 5,147.
- The Nasdaq fell 228 points, or 1.4%, to 16,049.
Markets fell after Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said he's questioning the need to cut rates if so many areas of the economy look to be so solid despite high interest rates. He had earlier penciled in two cuts to interest rates this year, "but if we continue to see inflation moving sideways, then that would make me question about whether we need to do those rate cuts at all." Kashkari's warning, which he said also depends on "a lot of 'ifs,'" cut at one of the main propellants that drove the stock market up more than 20% from November into March: the expectation for several cuts to interest rates, at least.
Nvidia was emblematic of the market's shift, going from a gain of nearly 2% to a drop of 2.5%. It was the single heaviest weight on the S&P 500. Lamb Weston slumped 19.5% after the frozen french fry maker said a transition to a new planning system hurt its ability to fill customer orders. On the winning end of Wall Street, ConAgra Brands climbed 4.9% after the owner of brands like Birds Eye and Duncan Hines reported a milder dip in revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Levi Strauss jumped 14.4% after its latest quarterly results likewise topped expectations.
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