NEW YORK: Wall Street’s main indexes fell in choppy trading on Tuesday as US bond yields rose after new Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the economy was strengthening and that inflation would rise.
Following his comments, traders of US short-term interest rate futures began pricing in a higher chance of a fourth rate hike this year, based on a Reuters analysis.
The benchmark US 10-year Treasury yields rose to a session high of 2.914 percent.
“Pretty much the market is going to be fluttering back and forth in both directions based on things he says today, so it doesn’t surprise me too much,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas.
“It’s his first speech and the market is already in a higher volatility phase.”
In his prepared remarks, Powell had hinted that the central bank would stick to its current path of gradual rate hikes despite the added stimulus of tax cuts and government spending.
Powell’s testimony comes at a sensitive time for the market, which has swayed wildly in recent weeks on inflation fears.
Stocks have recovered much of their losses from the early February sell-off, when they shed more than 10 percent.
At 11:21 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 20.34 points, or 0.08 percent, at 25,688.93, the S&P 500 was down 7.08 points, or 0.254713 percent, at 2,772.52 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 28.97 points, or 0.39 percent, at 7,392.50.
US cable giant Comcast offered to buy Sky for $31 billion in an unsolicited approach, taking on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox and Bob Iger’s Walt Disney in the battle for Europe’s biggest pay-TV group.
Comcast fell 5.2 percent, while Walt Disney dropped 3.1 percent and Twenty-First Century Fox 1.9 percent, dragging down the S&P consumer discretionary index.
In a big week for retail earnings, Macy’s reported higher-than-expected same-store sales growth for the fourth quarter. Its shares jumped 11 percent.
Fitbit slumped more than 10 percent after the wearable device maker forecast current-quarter results below estimates.
Luxury builder Toll Brothers’ shares rose 1.2 percent after it reported quarterly profit that beat analysts’ estimates as it sold more homes at higher prices.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,595 to 990. On the Nasdaq, 1,434 issues rose and 965 fell.
Wall Street slips after Jerome Powell sees strengthening economy, rising inflation
Wall Street slips after Jerome Powell sees strengthening economy, rising inflation
Multilateralism strained, but global cooperation adapting: WEF report
DUBAI: Overall levels of international cooperation have held steady in recent years, with smaller and more innovative partnerships emerging, often at regional and cross-regional levels, according to a World Economic Forum report.
The third edition of the Global Cooperation Barometer was launched on Thursday, ahead of the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos from Jan. 19 to 23.
“The takeaway of the Global Cooperation Barometer is that while multilateralism is under real strain, cooperation is not ending, it is adapting,” Ariel Kastner, head of geopolitical agenda and communications at WEF, told Arab News.
Developed alongside McKinsey & Company, the report uses 41 metrics to track global cooperation in five areas: Trade and capital; innovation and technology; climate and natural capital; health and wellness; and peace and security.
The pace of cooperation differs across sectors, with peace and security seeing the largest decline. Cooperation weakened across every tracked metric as conflicts intensified, military spending rose and multilateral mechanisms struggled to contain crises.
By contrast, climate and nature, alongside innovation and technology, recorded the strongest increases.
Rising finance flows and global supply chains supported record deployment of clean technologies, even as progress remained insufficient to meet global targets.
Despite tighter controls, cross-border data flows, IT services and digital connectivity continued to expand, underscoring the resilience of technology cooperation amid increasing restrictions.
The report found that collaboration in critical technologies is increasingly being channeled through smaller, aligned groupings rather than broad multilateral frameworks.
This reflects a broader shift, Kastner said, highlighting the trend toward “pragmatic forms of collaboration — at the regional level or among smaller groups of countries — that advance both shared priorities and national interests.”
“In the Gulf, for example, partnerships and investments with Asia, Europe and Africa in areas such as energy, technology and infrastructure, illustrate how focused collaboration can deliver results despite broader, global headwinds,” he said.
Meanwhile, health and wellness and trade and capital remained flat.
Health outcomes have so far held up following the pandemic, but sharp declines in development assistance are placing growing strain on lower- and middle-income countries.
In trade, cooperation remained above pre-pandemic levels, with goods volumes continuing to grow, albeit at a slower pace than the global economy, while services and selected capital flows showed stronger momentum.
The report also highlights the growing role of smaller, trade-dependent economies in sustaining global cooperation through initiatives such as the Future of Investment and Trade Partnership, launched in September 2025 by the UAE, New Zealand, Singapore and Switzerland.
Looking ahead, maintaining open channels of communication will be critical, Kastner said.
“Crucially, the building block of cooperation in today’s more uncertain era is dialogue — parties can only identify areas of common ground by speaking with one another.”
