Stock Market Today: Wall Street Slips as Bond Market Pressure Mounts

 

The stock market today saw most of Wall Street slip as the bond market cranked up the pressure. The S&P 500 ended little changed on Monday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 74 points and the Nasdaq composite rose 0 1. The majority of stocks fell, with 80% of S&P 500 stocks dropping, but gains for Apple and some other influential Big Tech stocks helped limit the market’s losses . Slumps for oil-and-gas stocks weighed on the market after crude prices gave back some of their sharp gains since the summer.

The main reason for the decline is Wall Street’s growing acceptance that high interest rates are here to stay a while as the Federal Reserve tries to knock high inflation lower. That in turn has pushed Treasury yields to their highest levels in more than a decade, which makes investors less willing to pay high prices for stocks and other investments. The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed again Monday, up to 4.69% from 4.58% late Friday, and is near its highest level since 2007. High yields send investors toward bonds that are paying much more than in the past, which pulls dollars away from stocks and undercuts their prices. Stocks that pay high dividends with relatively steady businesses see particular pain because their investors are more likely to switch between stocks and bonds. That puts a harsh spotlight on utility companies. PG&E dropped 5.7%, and Dominion Energy sank 5.3% for some of the sharpest losses in the S&P 500.