Dow Jones falls 140 points as economic data cools and ‘frantic’ November rally hits speed bump

What’s driving markets

Investors were taking a breather on Thursday to digest weaker economic data and a rally that has carried the Nasdaq nearly 10% higher since the beginning of November.

The bullish tone allowed the tech-heavy Nasdaq index to exit correction territory. The S&P 500 also has been knocking on the door of an exit but needs to close at 4,529.11 or higher to officially mark a rebound of at least 10% from its recent low.

“We’ve had solid gains, so a down day is expected,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital, in a phone interview. “Today, we also had a slew of macro news, which most of it was basically negative in terms of economic activity but good for the Fed, in that the economy is slowing, exactly what it wants it to do.”

A raft of earnings from major retailers were another focus, including from Walmart
WMT,
-8.14%,
Macy’s
M,
+4.64%
and Williams-Sonoma
WSM,
+5.70%.
Shares of Walmart were down more than 8%, weighing on the Dow, following comments from Doug McMillon, Walmart’s chief executive, indicating that he expects to see a U.S. deflation trend in the coming months.

See: Walmart’s shareholders may have anticipated today’s selloff — if they’d been watching its bonds

Also on the earnings front were poorly received results from Cisco Systems
CSCO,
-11.59%,
which saw the networking company’s stock drop more than 11% on Thursday, making it another leading Dow decliner.

The broader rally in unloved corners of the market also paused, including for the small-cap Russell 2000 index,
RUT
which was down 1.6% Thursday.

Wall Street veteran JJ Kinahan, chief executive of IG North America, which owns Tastytrade, said the market was due for a down day after the S&P 500 rose in 11 of the past 13 sessions through Wednesday.

“Everyone’s taking a breath from the almost frantic buying pace we’ve seen over the past week,” he said in a phone interview with MarketWatch.

Investors also were hearing from U.S. central bankers, with Fed governor Lisa Cook saying Thursday that inflation can keep declining without a sharp spike in unemployment but warning that a “soft landing” for the U.S. economy “is not assured.”

Recent signs of cooling inflation, rising layoffs and slowing job creation helped bolster expectations that the Fed may have delivered its last interest-rate hike of the cycle in July.

The central bank raised short-term borrowing costs at the fastest pace since the 1980s to combat the most severe bout of inflation in four decades.

Stocks were falling even though the 10-year Treasury yield
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
was trading at 4.44%, down 11 basis points on the day. Yields, which move inversely to bond prices, have fallen from a 16-year high of about 5%, reached last month.

In economic data, weekly jobless-claims data released Thursday showed the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits jumped to a three-month high, the latest sign of a cooling labor market.

In other economic news, the Philadelphia Fed said Thursday that its gauge of regional business activity improved slightly to negative 5.9 in November from negative 9 in the prior month. A Fed report on industrial production showed a drop of 0.6% in October, larger than economists had expected. Investors also digested the latest release from the home-builder sentiment index, which declined to 34 from 40 in November.

Companies in focus

• Shares of Macy’s were up after the department-store chain reported a surprise third-quarter profit that beat expectations.

• U.S.-listed shares of Alibaba Group
  BABA,
  -9.62%
   were falling after the company posted solid earnings but issued a warning about the impact of U.S. export controls.

Jamie Chisholm contributed.