Equities Fall For Second Straight Day, Yields Rise

04:56 PM EDT, 09/24/2025 (MT Newswires) -- US equities fell for the second straight day, while Treasury yields rose as investors continued to evaluate what appeared to be hawkish remarks made by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4% to 46,121.3 on Wednesday. The Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 fell 0.3% each to 22,497.9 and 6,638, respectively. Most sectors ended in the red, led by materials, while energy saw the biggest gain.

On Tuesday, the three benchmark indexes declined as Powell said that the central bank's Federal Open Market Committee faced a "challenging situation," with near-term risks to inflation tilted to the upside and those to employment leaning downside.

"To us, it was not a surprise that stocks would slump following (Powell's) 'hawkish' speech yesterday," Macquarie said in a client note. "What was a surprise was that the market hadn't slumped similarly in the days following that same 'hawkish' tone in (Powell's) post-FOMC press conference on September 17."

At that conference last week, Powell characterized the Fed's decision to lower interest rates by 25 basis points as a "risk management cut." The FOMC noted increased downside risks to employment and signaled further monetary policy easing later in 2025.

On Tuesday, Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman said recent data indicate that policymakers are at a "serious risk of already being behind the curve" in addressing a weakening labor market.

US Treasury yields were higher, with the two-year rate rising 4.8 basis points to 3.6% and the 10-year rate adding 4.4 basis points to 4.15%.

In economic news, US new home sales in August hit the highest level since January 2022 even as prices increased, government data showed.

"New home sales blew past expectations in August," Oxford Economics said. "That is at odds with other indicators and likely overstates any improvement in housing activity."

Looking ahead, homes sales are expected to improve as mortgage rates drop and the labor market "regains its footing," the firm said.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said mortgage applications in the US increased last week as the 30-year fixed rate on conforming loans reached the lowest since September 2024.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil was up 2.2% at $64.81 a barrel in Wednesday late-afternoon trade.

Commercial crude stockpiles in the US logged an unexpected draw last week as distillate fuel and motor gasoline inventories dropped, government data showed Wednesday.

In company news, Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) shares slumped 17%, the steepest decline on the S&P 500. The company said it is notifying commercial counterparties of a force majeure as a result of the Sept. 8 mud rush incident at its Grasberg Block Cave mine in Indonesia that led to the death of at least two people.

Integral Ad Science (IAS) shares soared nearly 21% after the digital ad verification company agreed to be acquired and taken private by Novacap in an all-cash deal worth $1.9 billion.

Thor Industries (THO) logged an unexpected annual increase in its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings, with revenue topping market estimates, while the recreational vehicle maker provided a "prudent" full-year outlook amid macro uncertainties. The company's shares were up 6.1%.

Micron Technology (MU) fell 2.8%. BofA Securities said that the semiconductor maker could face "meaningful" share and pricing pressures ahead amid potential competition in the high bandwidth memory, or HBM, space with South Korea's Samsung.

Samsung's 12-layer HBM3E product recently cleared US chipmaking giant Nvidia's (NVDA) qualification tests, paving the way for its use in the artificial intelligence accelerators key to the training of AI models, news outlets reported.

Gold fell 1.4% to $3,763.60 per troy ounce, while silver dropped 1.2% to $44.10 per ounce.

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