NEW YORK, Feb 28 — Wall Street stocks edged down today after a positive start to the week, as traders weigh lingering concerns over the Federal Reserve's future policy direction.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3 per cent to 32,799.13 while the broad-based S&P 500 lost 0.2 per cent to 3,974.78."You're always going to find new money coming into the market at the end of the month. The money needs to be allocated," said Quincy Krosby of LPL Financial. "But that said, there is still an underpinning of concern of what the Fed is going to do," she said, adding the market is concerned over potential steeper interest rate hikes.
While the US central bank has tempered its aggressive pace of hikes to counter inflation, policymakers are still looking for more definitive evidence that the world's biggest economy is cooling. The gloomier start to the day comes as retailer Target topped fourth quarter expectations but issued"below-consensus guidance for its fiscal first quarter and full year," said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com.Meanwhile shares of Zoom, which issued better results and guidance than anticipated, picked up around one per cent as well. — AFP