Wall St steadies itself after painful drop on ‘rate’ fears

Global stocks fall

NEW YORK, March 8, (AP): Stocks are steadying on Wall Street Wednesday, a day after sinking to one of their worst days of the year.

The S&P 500 was 0.1% higher in midday trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 93 points, or 0.3%, at 32,763, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.

Stocks are coming off a sharp drop the prior day after the head of the Federal Reserve warned it could speed up its hikes to interest rates if pressure on inflation stays high. Such hikes can ease inflation by slowing the economy, but they also hit prices for stocks and other investments and raise the risk of a recession in the future.

The Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, said again Wednesday that pressure on inflation appears to be running higher than earlier expected. But he also stressed much more strenuously than he did on Tuesday that the Fed hasn’t made a decision yet on the size of its future hikes.

Rate hikes

He said policy makers want to see what reports say in the run-up to their next meeting later this month. That gave some solace to the market, which shuddered a day earlier on fears the Fed was set to increase the size of its rate hikes.

One of the reports he highlighted in particular was one that came out as he spoke Wednesday morning. It showed that the number of job openings advertised across the country last month remained higher than expected. Such data has become excruciatingly scrutinized because they can give a clue about where wages are heading for workers.

Strong wage gains are good for workers struggling to keep up with high inflation, but too-high growth could cause a vicious cycle that pushes inflation higher, the Fed worries.

While the higher-than-expected number of job openings could spook markets, the report also showed some signs of easing pressure, including fewer Americans quitting their jobs.

Europe

France’s CAC 40 and Britain’s FTSE 100 each shed 0.2%. Germany’s DAX moved 0.2% higher.

Asia

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 edged up 0.5% to finish at 28,444.19. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.8% to 7,307.80. South Korea’s

Kospi dropped 1.3% to 2,431.91.

Chinese shares sank after officials in Beijing announced plans for a regulatory shakeup. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng tumbled 2.4% to 20,051.25, while the Shanghai Composite slipped less than 0.1% to 3,283.25.

Oil

Benchmark U.S. crude lost 32 cents

to $77.26 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 19 cents to $83.10 a barrel.

Currencies

The U.S. dollar rose to 137.14 Japanese yen from 137.07 yen. The euro cost $1.0546, down from $1.0551.