U.S. stocks were considerably lower Tuesday morning, as Wall Street geared up for numerous data releases after the Memorial Day holiday.
Both the Dow and S&P 500 hit new record highs last week, but finished lower to close the week on Friday. On Tuesday, investors watched the following data releases for clues on an impending interest rate hike:
- Durable goods orders (down 0.5% for April)
- Home prices indices (gain of 5%, in line with expectations)
- New home sales figures (rose 6.8%, higher than the expected 5.0%)
- Conference Board Consumer Confidence report (a rating of 95.4, vs. an expected 96.1)
But it was the continuing strength of the dollar that had investors worried Tuesday, as the Euro fell below $1.09 vs. the American currency.
Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer made comments from Israel on Monday, offering his opinion that people need to stop worrying about when interest rate hikes will begin, and focus instead on ‘how high will they go?’ Fischer says many Fed economists believe the interest rate will hit 3.25%-4% within two to three years.
Here are the final numbers from Wall Street on Tuesday:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 18,041.54 (-190.48)
NASDAQ: 5,032.75 (-56.61)
S&P 500: 2,104.20 (-21.86)