US: Stocks retreat as Treasury bond yields climb

[NEW YORK] Wall Street stocks retreated on Wednesday ahead of earnings from artificial intelligence titan Nvidia, with US Treasury bond yields ticking higher.

Results from chip company Nvidia have been the most anticipated event of the week, given the company’s influence as a leader in AI. Nvidia shares fell 0.5 per cent on Wednesday.

US Treasury yields resumed their upward climb. Yields had moderated in recent days after spiking to multi-month highs last week in a sign of unease about the US fiscal outlook.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 0.6 per cent at 42,098.70.

The broad-based S&P 500 also dropped 0.6 per cent to 5,888.55, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index shed 0.5 per cent to 19,100.94.

Minutes from the most recent Federal Reserve meeting reported that US firms had warned the central bank that the cost of President Donald Trump’s tariffs would likely be borne by consumers.

At that meeting, policymakers voted to hold the US central bank’s benchmark lending rate between 4.25 and 4.50 per cent as they continued to fight inflation, which remains above the Fed’s long-term target of two percent.

Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities described the minutes as in line with expectations, adding that the market is focused on Nvidia and Friday’s US inflation report.

“The next big hurdle for the market will be Nvidia’s earnings this evening, and then on Friday we have the (inflation) index,” said Cardillo.

Shares of Cadence Design System and Synopsys slumped following a Financial Times report that the Trump administration had told the companies to stop supplying technology to China.

US officials did not immediately respond to queries on the issue. AFP