Investing.com -- Stocks fell on Wednesday, as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell dealt a blow to hopes for a rate cut, prompting broad selling.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.61%, the S&P 500 lost 0.75%, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.57%.
Powell said the central bank's current path of monetary policy was appropriate, cooling investor expectations that the central bank's next move on policy would be a rate cut rather than a hike.
“We do think our policy stance is appropriate right now. We don’t see a strong case for moving in either direction,” Powell said during a news conference after the central bank’s policy meeting this week.
Powell's remarks arrived after the Fed left its benchmark unchanged and signaled that its future policy decisions would continue to be led by incoming economic data, and investors hoping for an interest-rate cut reacted by selling heavily after 2:30 p.m. ET.
The sea of red across markets pushed tech stocks into negative territory despite a 4.9% rally in Apple.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) raised guidance after Tuesday's close and delivered fiscal second-quarter results that topped estimates from Investing.com, as services growth and recovering iPhone sales underpinned performance.
Apple briefly had a market capitalization of $1.02 trillion, but the broad selling pushed the shares lower. So Apple's market cap dropped to $992.66 billion. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) closed on Tuesday with a market cap of $1 trillion, but the shares fell 2.1% on Wedneday, leaving the company with a market cap of $979.92 billion.
Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) also racked up gains for the day, propping up semiconductor stocks on the back of stronger-than-expected first-quarter numbers.
In healthcare, CVS Health (NYSE:CVS) raised guidance on full-year earnings to a range of $6.75 to $6.90, from its earlier forecast of $6.68 to $6.88, after first-quarter results topped estimates, sending shares more than 4% higher.
But there were some hiccups on the earnings front as Clorox (NYSE:CLX) reported lower-than-expected earnings amid rising competition, sending its share price sharply lower.
Still, the mostly upbeat earnings eased expectations of an earnings recession, with 75% of companies in the S&P 500 beating earnings estimates, according to FactSet.
On the economic front, investors digested mixed data as U.S. manufacturing activity slowed, but private sector job growth remained robust.
On the labor market front, private payrolls grew by 275,000 for last month, according to a report released Wednesday by ADP (NASDAQ:ADP) and Moody's Analytics. That was the biggest monthly gain since last July and exceeded analysts' forecasts of a 180,000 increase.
The report comes days ahead of a crucial nonfarm payroll report due Friday.
Top S&P 500 Gainers and Losers Today:
Royal Caribbean Cruises (NYSE:RCL), Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS) and Hilton Worldwide (NYSE:HLT) were among the top S&P 500 gainers for the session.
Molson Coors Brewing (NYSE:TAP), Clorox (NYSE:CLX) and Garmin (NASDAQ:GRMN) were among the worst S&P 500 performers of on the day.