US Stocks Open Mixed as Warsh Vows to Fight Inflation
The US stock markets opened on Friday with mixed signals, as investors booked profits in chip stocks. The Dow Jones and S&P 500 indices showed marginal gains, while the NASDAQ 100 erased some of its previous day's gains.
Despite this, the Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh provided fresh cues for inflation, interest rates, and growth at the Jackson Hole Symposium. He stated that underlying inflation is not slowing down and vowed to fight price growth until it comes closer to 2%.
The US 10Y yields recouped most of their losses from August 25, surging above the 4.68% level. However, 30Y yields fell below 5.17%, indicating a benign long-term inflation and interest rates outlook. The near-term interest rate hike fears increased ahead of Warsh's speech.
At the stock-specific level, Nvidia shares witnessed profit booking, losing 1.9% after soaring 8.7% on Thursday. On the other hand, mega caps such as Meta Platforms, Alphabet, Apple Inc, Amazon Inc, and Microsoft continued their rally with gains ranging from 0.6% to 1.4%.
Salesforce extended its two-day rally, rising 3.2%, after posting strong revenue growth of $11.2 billion, an 11% year-over-year increase. The company also raised its FY27 revenue target to $46.7 billion from $46.2 billion earlier, alleviating worries about the impact of AI on software as a service (SaaS) companies.