- US stocks closed lower on Wednesday after volatile swings in final minutes of trading session.
- The S&P 500 energy sector gained on the back of rising oil prices, after OPEC+ decided to cut production by 2 million barrels a day.
- ADP reports that the number of jobs in private-sector companies increased by 208,000 in September.
US stocks ended lower Wednesday due to volatile swings during the closing minutes of the trading session. They were unable to recover from a massive rally of two days earlier.
Stocks fell for most of the session but then rebounded to positive territory towards the end of day. However, those gains were short-lived and the stock market lost its momentum by the close. The S&P 500’s energy sector rose with oil prices advancing after OPEC+ stated that it will reduce production by 2 million barrels per dayStart in November
“The recent bounce can probably been chalked up to deeply undersold conditions plus some positive items on Fed ‘pivot narrative including a large reduction in US job opportunities and the lower than expected rate hike in Australia,” Ross Mayfield from Baird Private Wealth Management told Insider in emailed remarks.
He said that the Fed must set a higher bar for its ‘pivot’ and that there are no signs that core inflation has slowed enough to allow it to be comfortable.
Here are the US indexes at the closing bell of Wednesday, 4:00 p.m.
ADP’s private-sector jobs data showed that September payrolls increased slightly by 208,000 in September, which is slightly higher than an Econoday consensus estimate at 200,000. This report was the second using ADP’s new methodology, and arrived before Friday’s September nonfarm data from the US government.
Insider was told by Bill Merz, U.S. Bank Wealth Management head of capital market research, that “we remain cautiously positioned” as we have for much this year. He said that the allocation to stocks is smaller than normal and that to high-quality bonds and global infrastructure is larger than normal.
“Investors are looking for signs of Fed pivot but that is highly unlikely until inflation sinks significantly. Unfortunately, measures such as the Cleveland Fed’s trimmed mean CPI or the Atlanta Fed’s’sticky CPI’, which tracks components of CPI that are slowing changing, are still rising. This suggests that inflation could take some more time to drop to the level the Fed needs.
Here are some other happenings today:
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