The moves were stronger in the bond market, where Treasury yields rose after a report forced Wall Street to scale back hopes that the Federal Reserve may soon deliver relief by cutting interest rates.
The report suggested growth in U.S. business activity is accelerating and hit its fastest rate so far this year. That’s good news for the economy, but the preliminary data from S&P Global also said tariffs helped push up average selling prices at the fastest rate in three years. That’s a discouraging sign for inflation.
Taken all together, such data has historically aligned more with the Federal Reserve considering a hike in interest rates, rather than a cut, according to Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.33% from 4.29%. The two-year Treasury, which moves more on expectations for what the Federal Reserve will do with short-term interest rates, climbed to 3.79% from 3.74%.
Analysts said the market’s expectations were high coming into the report. The Bentonville, Arkansas, company’s stock came into the day with a gain of 13.5% for the year so far, well above the rest of the market.
Several AI superstar stocks have swung sharply this week, taking some shine off their skyscraping surges for the year, because of such criticism. But they held a bit steadier on Thursday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across much of Europe and Asia.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.6% after a survey showed Japan’s factory activity contracted again in August.
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AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.
