Stocks fell lower on Thursday as another quarterly earnings report from Nvidia (NVDA) couldn’t overcome fresh comments from the Federal Reserve suggesting interest rates will need to remain high for an extended period of time to bring down inflation.
Close to noon EST on Thursday, the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) was down 1.2%, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) was down 0.7%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) was down about 0.5%, or 166. a point.
In an interview with Yahoo Finance’s Jennifer Schoonberger on Thursday, Boston Fed President Susan Collins said it was “highly likely” that the central bank would need to keep interest rates high to bring down inflation.
“I think it’s going to take some time to really make sure that we’re seeing the continued realignment of demand and supply that’s required in order to get inflation back on a path that will get back to 2% (in) by a reasonable amount. Collins said in an interview during the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium in Wyoming:
“I think it’s very likely that we will need to maintain (interest rates at current levels) for an extended period of time, but I wouldn’t say where exactly the peak is at this point. We may be close to that,” Collins added. (peak), but we might need to boost it up a bit further.
Investors will be closely watching Fed Chair Jay Powell’s speech on Friday morning for additional clues about the future course of policy.
Stocks ended Wednesday in the green across the board ahead of Nvidia’s earnings and the tech giant didn’t disappoint.
The company reported revenue of $13.51 billion, up 101% from last year, while adjusted earnings were $2.70 per share, up 429% from last year. Shares rose as much as 8% in pre-market trading on the news.
Those gains had narrowed to about 2.7% by midday.
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