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Thursday marked another day of choppy trading for stocks as investors considered a round of data that showed the U.S. economy remained resilient even in the face of the Federal Reserve's aggressive rate-hike campaign.
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Ahead of this morning's open, data from the Labor Department showed weekly jobless claims fell for a fifth straight week, underscoring strength in the labor market. Additionally, the Commerce Department said retail sales rose 0.3% month-over-month in August, beating economists' expectations for a slight decline in consumer spending.
"This [retail sales] report is not good for the Fed's goals of slower inflation," says José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers. "The Fed would like to see consumers slow down their spending and debt accumulation to slow down inflation. Higher rates provide an incentive to save, not to spend, and that's part of the reason why tighter monetary policy brings down demand and inflation." As such, Torres says the market is not only expecting a 75 basis-point rate hike at next week's Fed meeting, but one at the November meeting too. (A basis point is one-one hundredth of a percentage point.)
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By the close, the market had taken a decisive turn lower as the 10-year Treasury yield jumped 3.5 basis points to 3.447%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite suffered the worst of it, slumping 1.4% to 11,552. However, the S&P 500 Index (-1.1% to 3,901) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.6% at 30,961) also ended solidly in the red.
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