A couple of big names in the communication services and technology sectors kept two of the three main U.S. equity indexes above water for much of Wednesday's trading session. But price action for the broader market was more ambiguous, with another set of incoming data showing a weakening employment situation ahead of an increasingly fraught Jobs Friday.
Odds the central bank cuts interest rates at the next Fed meeting are up to 95.4%, according to CME Group's FedWatch tool. And the yield on the 2-year U.S. Treasury note is falling – it was down to 3.621% on Wednesday from 3.658% on Tuesday and a post-Liberation Day high of 4.055% on May 14.
At the same time, though it retreated to 4.904% Wednesday from a previous close of 4.971%, the yield on the 30-year U.S. bond is generally rising. It got as high as 4.999% Tuesday, close enough to touch the psychologically significant 5% level and up from 4.766% as of August 5.
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The market is providing a real-time lesson on how the Federal Reserve can control the short end of the yield curve, but the long end will respond to inputs such as expectations for inflation and economic growth as well as demand for capital and debt dynamics.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the August jobs report before the opening bell on Friday. Markets will weigh what it says about the employment situation against the potential impact of tariffs on prices.
By the closing bell, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 1.0% to 21,497, and the broad-based S&P 500 had rallied late for a 0.5% gain at 6,448. But the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.06% to 45,270.
Alphabet is free
Alphabet (GOOGL) popped in Tuesday's after-market trading session on a favorable decision in a federal antitrust case: The tech conglomerate can retain ownership of Google's Chrome browser but is barred from inking additional exclusive search engine deals.
U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta's ruling "recognizes how much the industry has changed through the advent of AI," Google said in a statement, "which is giving people so many more ways to find information."
GOOGL was up 9.1% at Wednesday's closing bell.
Apple is crisp
Apple (AAPL) surged to the top of the list of Dow Jones stocks in the wake of the Chrome ruling, which will allow Alphabet to keep paying the iPhone maker to make it the default browser on its devices.
According to filings in the antitrust case, Apple received $20 billion from Google in 2022, which Wall Street pegs as the broad annual estimate.
"There will be some tweaks to the partnership," says Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, "but ultimately this removes a $25 overhang on Apple's stock."
Ives expects Wall Street to interpret the ruling as "very bullish" for AAPL stock, as it answers an open question "after years of speculation."
AAPL was up 3.8% Wednesday.
JOLTS is shaky
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the number of job openings was down slightly to 7.181 million in July from a revised-downward count of 7.357 million in June.
This second straight decline "came alongside constant labor market turnover relative to June," according to Barclays Chief U.S. Economist Marc Giannoni, "represented by constant hiring and separation rates."
Still, according to Giannoni, the data won't have "any material impact on the Fed going into the September meeting."
The economist says the labor market "remains on a gradual slowing trend," though the JOLTS data is "somewhat backward-looking … The August employment report, due this Friday, offers a more up-to-date view on the state of the labor market."
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