Stocks fall on Wall Street, giving back recent gains

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are falling on Wall Street Wednesday, giving back some of their recent gains as uncertainty about interest rates and inflation continues to reign.

The S&P 500 was 0.9% lower in midday trading following another mixed set of earnings reports from big companies. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 153 points, or 0.5%, at 34,002, as of 12:10 p.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 1.4% lower.

The pullback follows Tuesday's gain of 1.3% for the S&P 500, which came after the first public comments by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell since the central bank raised interest rates last week. Markets found some solace in Powell's signaling that Friday's exceptionally strong jobs report wouldn't by itself push the Fed to get more aggressive on interest rates.

But analysts pointed out that Powell's comments were just as tough on inflation as before. He said that while he has seen improvements in inflation, the road ahead is still long to get it fully under control. The Fed can help drive down inflation by raising interest rates and keeping them high, but that also raises the risk of a deep recession and hurts investment prices in the meantime.

The Fed has been saying that it plans to hike interest rates a couple more times and then hold them at a high level at least through the end of the year. Wall Street moved its forecast for how high rates will go by the summer closer to the Fed's following Friday's blockbuster report showing much stronger job growth than expected, which could raise the pressure on inflation. But investors are still betting on the possibility of a cut to rates late this year.