US close: Stocks weaker on hawkish Fed commentary

dl federal reserve bank of new york city nyc wall st street finance money dollars fed dollar us usa united states of america — New York Federal ReserveSharecast photo / Josh White

Stocks on Wall Street were still in the red by the closing bell on Thursday, with still hawkish remarks from top Fed officials a chief reason for the moves.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the session down 1.54% at 29,225.61, as the S&P 500 lost 2.11% to 3,640.47 and the Nasdaq Composite was off 2.84% at 10,737.51.

Speaking at a virtual forum, St. Louis Fed boss James Bullard said markets appeared to be correct in anticipating "a fair amount of additional [rate] moves this year".

His peer at the Cleveland Fed, Loretta Mester, meanwhile told CNBC that "we're still not even in restricted territory on the funds rate".

Elsewhere on the economic side of things, the Department of Labor said that initial unemployment claims for the week ending on 24 September declined by 16,000 to reach 193,000, printing far below the 220,000 forecast by the consensus.

At the same time, the Department of Commerce reported that the US economy shrank by 0.6% quarter-on-quarter over the three months to June -the same as the previous estimate.

Nonetheless, the core price deflator for personal consumption expenditures was revised up by three tenths of a percentage point to 4.7%.

In equities, auto-related stocks were in focus, with used car retailer CarMax plunging 24.6% after it missed sales and earnings expectations in the quarter through August.

Carmakers were also in the red, with Ford down 5.83%, General Motors falling 5.65%, and Tesla off 6.81%.

Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com. Additional reporting by Alexander Bueso.

Dow Jones - Risers

Travelers Company Inc. (TRV) $154.79 1.15%
Visa Inc. (V) $180.06 0.49%
Honeywell International Inc. (HON) $0.00 0.00%
Dowdupont Inc. (DWDP) $0.00 0.00%
Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) $86.65 -0.16%
Walmart Inc. (WMT) $132.33 -0.65%
Chevron Corp. (CVX) $144.77 -0.69%
Coca-Cola Co. (KO) $56.57 -0.72%
International Business Machines Corporation (CDI) (IBM) $121.63 -0.92%
Unitedhealth Group Inc. (UNH) $509.18 -0.99%