Investing.com – Wall Street struggled to gain momentum on Thursday as bond yields rose amid expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this year.
The S&P 500 fell four and a half points or 0.16% to 2,819.21 as of 10:33 AM ET (15:33 GMT) while the Dow composite decreased 42 points or 0.16% to 26,107.22, and tech heavy NASDAQ Composite was down six points or 0.08% to 7,405.45.
The Fed decided to leave interest rates unchanged at its policy meeting on Wednesday, but said it expects inflation to move "up this year and to stabilize" around its 2 percent target. Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yields rose to four-year highs after the comments, as trader confidence increased that the Fed will rise rates in the future.
Bond yields rise when the federal fund rate increases because they lock investors into lower rates for extended periods.
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) was down 2.59% after the opening bell despite posting a 56% rise in revenue last quarter. PayPal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL) slumped 8.18% after eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) announced it was dropping the firm in favour of payments platform Adyen. EBay jumped 14.17% after the announcement.
Meanwhile Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) gained 1.41% while AT&T (NYSE:T) rose 4.58% and Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) increased 1.52%.
In Europe stocks were down. In Germany the DAX fell 184 points or 1.04% while France’s CAC 40 decreased 32 points or 0.59% and in London the FTSE 100 lost 31 points or 0.41%. Meanwhile Spain’s IBEX 35 fell 68 point or 0.66% and the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 inched down 28 points or 0.79%.
In commodities, gold futures were up 0.22% to $1,346.00 a troy ounce while crude oil futures surged 0.97% to $65.36 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, fell 0.22% to 88.75.