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Wall St closed lower on Thursday amid increasing pressure from rising bond yields, which have been on the rise since the Fitch downgrade earlier this week. The S&P 500 fell for the third straight day, closing the session down 0.25%, while the Dow Jones shed 0.19% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed marginally lower, down 0.1%.
US bond yields are trading at 4.18%, close to the highest levels since November 2022. This has had a significant impact on the real estate sector which closed more than 1% lower on Thursday.
After rallying for the most part of the year, it is expected that the US market may slow after both the S&P 500 and tech heavy Nasdaq secured their 5th straight month of gains earlier this week.
Over in Europe, markets in the region closed lower again on Thursday as investors assessed the latest slew of corporate earnings results alongside the Bank of England announcing a 25-basis point rate hike in a bid to tackle the stubbornly high inflation in the region.
The STOXX600 fell 0.7% with tech leading the losses, closing down by 1.8% as global sentiment remains shaky on the Fitch US downgrade. Oil and gas stocks rallied though after Saudi Arabia said it would extend output cut to 1 million barrels per day. Germany’s DAX closed 0.8% lower, the French CAC lost 0.72% and, in the UK, the FTSE100 fell 0.43%.
Locally, the Australian market closed 0.58% lower as a sentiment-driven sell-off in technology stocks weighed on the key index, while materials ended the day down 1.06%. The sell-off locally yesterday was driven by global market turbulence which has been the central theme over the last few days following the Fitch downgrade of the US.
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