Stocks Can't Shake Jackson Hole

By Connor Smith |  Monday, August 29

Down the Jackson Hole. U.S. stocks fell again today as traders couldn't shake Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's hawkish comments made Friday morning.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6%. The Dow has fallen 3.6% over the past two trading days. The S&P 500 fell 0.7%. The Nasdaq Composite fared even worse with a 1% decline. The tech-heavy index has fallen 4.9% over its past two trading days, as investors digested Powell's speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium.

Powell made it clear the central bank is determined to combat inflation, writes Oanda's Edward Moya. He adds:

Powell sent a short and direct message that there won’t be a Fed pivot anytime soon and that has markets positioned for further equity weakness.  Investors were expecting that once the U.S. got some ugly data, perhaps a couple negative nonfarm payroll reports, that the Fed would come to the rescue, but that might not be the case.  Premature loosening won’t be happening on the first signs that the economy is slowing down quickly and that [is] raising doubts for anyone who bought stocks earlier this month.

It wasn't just stocks that felt the pain. The price of Bitcoin Sunday evening fell below $20,000  for the first time since July 13, though it bounced back above that mark in Monday afternoon trading. Monday evening, Bitcoin was still down 7.2% from where it was trading before Powell’s speech, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Tom Essaye, founder of Sevens Report Research, told Barron's Karishma Vanjani that he doesn’t see Bitcoin as any different from stocks. Karishma writes:

Both are “waiting on the resolution of what’s going to happen with the economy, and nobody knows,” he told Barron’s.

That's especially true for shares of crypto firms, which Karishma writes about here.

DJIA: -0.57%  to 32,098.99
S&P 500: -0.67% to 4,030.61
Nasdaq: -1.02% to 12,017.67

The Hot Stock: Diamondback Energy +4.0%
The Biggest Loser: Catalent -7.4%  

Best Sector: Energy +1.5%
Worst Sector: Technology -1.3%