Stocks stumbled on Wall Street Thursday — adding to the week's losses — as markets remain anxious about the prospect of more aggressive action by the Federal Reserve to fight inflation.
A government report on Thursday showed that the number of Americans applying forlast week jumped by the most in five months, but layoffs remain historically low.
A big concern within the labor market reports for the Fed and Wall Street is the pace of wage growth. Strong wage gains are good for workers struggling to keep up with high inflation, but it could also keep pushing inflation higher, making it harder for the central bank to fight high prices.
Traders are leaning toward the Fed raising its benchmark interest rate by 0.50 percentage points on March 22. They had been expecting the central bank to stick with a smaller increase of 0.25 points prior to Powell’s testimony this week, according to data from CME Group.“The notion that was in back of minds of investors was that the worst of the tightening cycle was making its way into the rearview mirror and it would take a lot to reaccelerate tightening,” Buchanan said.
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