Investing.com – Wall Street fell on Wednesday amid concern about the Chinese slowing down or halting its purchase of U.S. bonds.
The S&P 500 fell seven points or 0.26% to 2,744.16 as of 10:18 AM ET (15:18 GMT) while the Dow composite decreased 57 points or 0.22% to 25,328.78 and tech heavy NASDAQ Composite was down over 33 points or 0.47% to 7,130.24.
Markets were pulling back from record highs on Tuesday amid concerns over the bond market, as the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose to its highest level since March, to 2.59%. Investors are concerned by news that China could slow or halt its purchasing of U.S. Treasury bonds. China has the world’s largest foreign exchange reserve, at $3.1 trillion.
Financial stocks were the biggest gainers after the morning bell. Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) inched forward 0.40% while JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) rose 0.54% and ING Group NV ADR (NYSE:ING) surged 3.27%. Meanwhile photography firm Eastman Kodak Co (NYSE:KODK) jumped 58.09% after it announced it was creating its own cryptocurrency.
Elsewhere Visa Inc (NYSE:V) was down 0.84% while Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) slumped 0.72% and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) decreased 0.69%. Semiconductor Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU) fell 1.49% while Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) lost 0.75% and NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) decreased 1.55%.
In Europe stocks were mixed. In Germany the DAX fell 135 points or 1.01% while France’s CAC 40 decreased 28 points or 0.51% and in London the FTSE 100 rose nine points or 0.13%. Meanwhile Spain’s IBEX 35 was up four points or 0.04% and the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 fell 21 points or 0.58%.
In commodities, gold futures increased 0.51% to $1,320.40 a troy ounce while crude oil futures rose 0.67% to 63.38 a barrel. The U.S dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, fell 0.46% to 91.81.