Summary:
- US stocks finished lower as Nasdaq dropped after recent gains, with focus turning to Jerome Powell's upcoming speech.
- Chairs of Nvidia reached record highs before settling slightly higher. Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq faced significant losses.
- Powell's economic outlook update awaited; Job market remains strong. Investors seek clarity on future interest rates and inflation impact.
- Boeing shares down 5%, warns of 737 Max Jets delivery delays due to quality issues with major supplier Spirit Aero Systems.
US stocks finished sharply lower Thursday, led by a drop in the Nasdaq after this week's sharp gains. Investors shifted their focus to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's speech Friday.
Chairs of Nvidia hit a record high early in the session after giving a much stronger than expected forecast, but ended the day just fractionally higher. The Dow slid 1.1%, the S&P 500 lost 1.1 third percent, and the Nasdaq dropped 1.9%.
Powell will update his economic outlook at the Kansas City Fed's annual event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It will come after data Thursday showed claims for US unemployment benefits pointed to a still strong jobs market. Market Vector Index's head of product management, Joy Yang, said investors are hoping to get some clarity on where interest rates will go from here. And it's still resilient. There's still work to be done. So the confidence that we had going into July about inflation has been tamed and recovery and the economy is looking good, isn't so confident anymore. So people are back to trying to second guess, is there going to be rate hikes? Is there going to be rate cuts? How long will we maintain rates for higher, for longer? And those implications will have impact further on towards different sectors in the markets overall.
Stocks on the move included Boeing, which lost 5% after it warned of delays and near term deliveries of 737 Max Jets due to a quality issue involving its biggest supplier, Spirit Aero Systems. Spirit shares plunged 13%.