Stocks ended Wednesday’s session lower as traders returning from the Independence Day broke eyed headwinds for the global economy and combed through the release of the Federal Reserve’s minutes from its June meeting.
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) finished down 0.2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) slipped by around 0.3% or about 100 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell 0.1%.
A surprisingly sharp fall in Chinese services activity stoked concerns about the health of the world’s second-biggest economy, against a backdrop of building tensions in the US-China trade war.
The minutes from the Fed’s June meeting showed that some Fed officials favored a rate hike but decided on a pause. During the same policy meeting, the minutes showed almost all officials believed it would be “appropriate or acceptable” to leave rates unchanged at 5.00% to 5.25%. Still, almost all officials “judged that additional increases in the target federal funds rate during 2023 would be appropriate.”
These insights will set investors up for the crucial June jobs report on Friday.
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