NEW YORK: Wall Street’s main indexes fell on Wednesday as talks between the White House and Republican representatives on raising the debt ceiling dragged on, while investors awaited minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting.
The lack of progress on raising the US government’s $31.4 trillion debt limit ahead of the June 1 deadline, with several rounds of inconclusive talks, has kept investors on edge as the risk of an unprecedented default looms large.
Negotiators for Democratic President Joe Biden and top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy reconvened for another round of discussions on Wednesday.
“These updates that you get that talks are progressing or breaking down, it’s just more sources of volatility,” said Matt Stucky, senior portfolio manager at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company.
The CBOE Volatility Index, known as Wall Street’s fear gauge, hovered near three-week highs.
Investors also awaited minutes from the Fed’s May 2-3 meeting, due at 1400 ET (1800 GMT), to assess the central bank’s interest-rate path.
Shorter-dated Treasury yields continued to rise, with yields on the 1-month bond hitting another record high at 5.8920%.
Nvidia Corp fell 2.0% ahead of its quarterly earnings after markets close. The chipmaker is the fifth most-valuable publicly traded company and the top performer in the S&P 500 index, up 105% for the year.
Energy stocks were a bright spot, with the S&P 500 energy index up 0.8% as oil prices rose about 2% after a drawdown in US crude inventories.
At 12:16 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 271.74 points, or 0.82%, at 32,783.77, the S&P 500 was down 36.78 points, or 0.89%, at 4,108.80, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 117.55 points, or 0.94%, at 12,442.70.
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