The stock market fell after its return from the long weekend, with memories of past September struggles top of mind.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 249 points, or 0.6%. The S&P 500 dropped 0.7%. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.8%.
The yield on the 2-year Treasury note was up to 3.66%. The 10-year yield jumped to 4.28%. The 30-year rose to 4.97 after briefly spiking to 5%. The bond market slide followed moves overseas, where yields of U.K., German, Dutch, and French debt hit their highest levels in more than a decade.
Investors had a lot of headlines to contend with, including a show of solidarity among leaders of Russia, China, and India, as well as the Trump administration’s legal battles regarding tariffs and its attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.
Beyond that, traders in recent sessions have trimmed stakes in high-flying artificial intelligence stocks like Nvidia heading into September; it’s historically been the worst month for the big three indexes.
Nvidia and other Magnificent Seven stocks fell sharply in morning trading before paring the worst of their declines.
“Tech volume is down 5-10% depending on the sector,” writes Mizuho’s Daniel O’Regan. “Despite the weakness we started to see some dip buyers adding to existing positions in MAG7 names, albeit passively.”
The big event of the week will be Friday’s employment report. Wall Street will want to see signs of resilience in the labor market, so a surprisingly weak report could threaten the market’s summer rally.