The S&P 500 closed down 14.61 points, or 0.28%, at 5,203.58, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 31.31 points, or 0.08%, to 39,282.33, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 68.77 points, or 0.42%, to 16,315.70
Wall Street edged lower in late trade on Tuesday, mostly in line with subdued global share market movements, while the yen stayed near 2022 intervention levels after more official Japanese efforts to deter shorting of the currency since last week’s monetary policy tightening.
Treasury yields were flat, reflecting muted trading across asset classes ahead of Good Friday, when U.S. markets and many other financial centres will be shut.
The S&P 500 closed down 14.61 points, or 0.28%, at 5,203.58, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 31.31 points, or 0.08%, to 39,282.33, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 68.77 points, or 0.42%, to 16,315.70.
MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe dropped 1.02 points, or 0.13%, to 778.43.
It is an interesting dynamic, and this holds every time we have a Fed meeting – the next week tends to have a quieter tone to it. Especially a holiday-shortened week like we have here, and the amount of data influence is going to be lighter, according to Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B Riley Wealth in New York, referring to the Federal Reserve.
That’s attracting the sideways movement we have seen, Hogan added.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index increased 0.24%, and MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan ended 0.25% higher 0.25%, at 535.59.
In the spotlight was the yen, which has been trading near its weakest against the dollar since 1990, even after the BoJ raised interest rates last week for the first time in 17 years.
The dollar rose 0.1% to 151.56 yen, facing the risk of Japan intervening to prevent further declines in the Japanese currency. Dollar/yen rose to 151.94 in October 2022, before intervention pushed it lower.
The dollar weakened 0.06% to 7.248 versus the offshore Chinese yuan, which was supported after a stronger-than-expected fixing of its trading band.
Markets were unsettled by a sharp decline in the yuan on Friday, after months of tight trading, and some speculate China is loosening its grip on the currency to allow it to drop.
We have got changing sands in the FX market. You have got threat of intervention from Japan, and from China. It is good to see that they do actually care about the economy and they are willing to step in. It is not quite the stimulus we want, but they are saying ‘enough is enough now, we do need to worry about our deflation’, according to XTB research director Kathleen Brooks.
A 14% drop in the yen’s value over the last 12 months fed a surge in Tokyo’s Nikkei index to record highs in recent days, even though it slid 0.04% on Tuesday.
