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Wall Street stocks trade lower
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Crude oil rebounds after losses
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Benchmark 10-year yields drop
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U.S. dollar gains
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Safe-have gold drops
(Updates prices, adds more background)
By Chibuike Oguh
NEW YORK, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Global equities were lower
while crude oil edged up as traders braced for higher interest
rates amid economic data that continued to show the strength of
the U.S. economy and which validated the Federal Reserve's tight
monetary policy stance.
A U.S. Labor Department report on Thursday showed that
new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last
week, pointing to a persistently tight labor market.
The readings for the fourth-quarter personal consumption
expenditures (PCE) price index, the Fed's preferred inflation
measure, was revised upward to 3.7%, indicating inflation was
much stronger than initially thought and helping to stoke
bearish sentiment among traders.
Minutes of the Federal Reserve's last meeting released
on Wednesday showed that officials favored a moderation in the
pace of rate hikes although they indicated that containing high
inflation would be key in how much further rates need to rise.
"The Fed minutes yesterday were a bit hawkish and they said
ongoing rate hikes would be necessary and that should obviously
be negative for the market," said Sandy Villere, portfolio
manager at Villere & Co in New Orleans.
The MSCI world equity index , which tracks
shares in 50 countries, was down 0.29%. European stocks were up at just 0.06%.
On Wall Street, the Nasdaq erased earlier gains on
better-than-expected revenue at chipmaker Nvidia Corp .
The results drove the company's shares up 13%, along with shares
of other semiconductor manufacturers.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.55% to
32,864.83, the benchmark S&P 500 lost 0.28% to 3,979.94
and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.3% to 11,473.04.
"The market is becoming a stock-pickers market where if
companies are putting out good numbers, they're being rewarded
even now that interest rates are going higher," Villere added.
Oil prices firmed more than 1% before paring some gains,
with Russian supply curbs partially offsetting an expected rise
in U.S. inventories.
Brent crude futures rose 2.36%, to $82.50 a barrel,
while West Texas Intermediate crude futures (WTI) advanced 2.35% to $75.69 after six sessions of losses.
U.S. Treasury yields edged lower in choppy trading, with
those on the 10-year pulling back from three-month highs, as
investors have priced in strong economic data.
Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes were down at
3.904%, while the yield curve measuring the gap between the two-
and 10-year Treasury notes was still inverted at
minus 77.90 basis points, indicating a looming recession.
The dollar retained its strength against its major peers. The
dollar index rose 0.201%, with the euro down 0.19%
at $1.0581.
Safe-haven gold prices slipped to their lowest in about two
months as the U.S. dollar climbed. Spot gold dropped 0.2%
to $1,820.95 an ounce, while U.S. gold futures fell 0.45%
to $1,823.70 an ounce.
(Reporting by Chibuike Oguh in New York, editing by Anna Driver
and Bernadette Baum)
