U.S. stocks are tracking world markets lower as investors worry about the global economic outlook and await the outcome of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s monthly meeting, which ends Wednesday. In a statement released on Wednesday after a two-day policy meeting, the Fed said USA “economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace despite global economic and financial developments in recent months”, but these developments continue to pose risks, Xinhua news agency reported.
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“Based on today’s lacklustre sales report, policymakers will be in no hurry to raise interest rates”.
“We need to see whether we’ll have one or two rate hikes this year, and whether the next one will come in June”. And the jobless rate, at 4.9 percent, is near the rate the Fed associates with full employment.
BANK IT: Financial stocks also traded higher. The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI advanced 0.09 percent, while the S&P 500 .SPX lost 0.13 percent. The stock was the biggest drag on the S&P 500.
Shares in BHP Billiton, Glencore, Rio Tinto and Antofagasta fell 3.9 to 6.5 percent, putting pressure on the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index, which fell 1.1 percent at 1,341.5 points.
Crude oil prices were rising after we got more OPEC headlines. In the USA, oil inventories grew, but not as much as investors expected.
Benchmark U.S. crude rose $2.12 to $38.46 a barrel in NY. Chesapeake Energy ( CHK ) and Williams (WMB) are turning in two of the sector’s best performances.
The 10-year note rose 6/32 in price to yield 1.9381 percent after briefly ticking above 2 percent for the first time since Jan 28. On Tuesday Mallinckrodt lost $5.55, or 8 percent, to $64.07 and Endo International fell $2.15, or 5.1 percent, to $39.93. The dollar recovered to 113.60 yen from 113.16 yen. Kinder Morgan added 76 cents, or 4.2 per cent, to $18.83 and Devon Energy gained 90 cents, or 3.7 per cent, to $24.99.
Metals prices were little changed on the day, as they closed earlier in the afternoon.
Gold futures for April delivery declined $1.70 to $1,229.30 an ounce as of 1:11 p.m. ET. Silver decreased 4 cents to $15.22 an ounce. Copper was unchanged at $2.23 a pound.
The Fed statement noted the mixed economic data but highlighted the recent strong increases in core inflation measures excluding food and energy prices.
CURRENCIES: The euro slipped to $1.1091 from $1.1100.
But since the start of the year, there’s been a huge disparity between the Fed’s expectations and Wall Street, which at one point bet there would be no rate hikes at all this year.
Manufacturing output ticked up in February, its second straight increase.
Other economic data also showed a balance of good and bad news.
The dollar rose strongly against the Brazilian real, gaining 1.4 percent after news that former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had resumed talks with President Dilma Rousseff after accepting a position in her cabinet. Natural gas rose 2 cents to $1.87 per 1,000 cubic feet. Britain’s FTSE 100 added 0.5 percent to 6,167.55.
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“The economy’s engines are not going into reverse… but at the moment, it is hard to see GDP with a 2% handle”, Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG Union Bank in NY, told Reuters.
