US stocks dipped on Monday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell put a chill on prospects for an early interest rate cut, raising the stakes for a packed week of corporate earnings to keep the recent rally alive. The S&P 500 ended the session down 0.3%, signaling a slight pullback from the benchmark's record-setting run. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed about 0.7% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.2%.
Those high spirits took a knock after Powell, in a "60 Minutes" interview that aired Sunday, doubled down on his midweek message that the central bank will tread cautiously in deciding when to cut rates. He said the "danger of moving too soon is the job's not quite done" in quelling inflation. That prompted traders to scale back their bets on rate cuts — not just for March, but in May too, per the CME FedWatch Tool.