Stocks struggled for direction for most of Thursday following a red-hot run that saw the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Compound
However, the major indices made a decisive turn lower by mid-afternoon, thanks to a hawkish speech from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
Major benchmark indices spent the day swinging between positive and negative territory. On the economic front, the Department of Labor said this morning that Unemployment claims
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As for the day's individual stock news, walt disney DIS ) rose 6.9% after the media and entertainment giant reported better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of 82 cents per share.
The company also said it ended the three-month period with 150.2 million Disney+ subscribers, more than analysts anticipated. This, along with Disney's plans to boost cost-cutting measures by an additional $2 billion to $7.5 billion, helped offset a revenue loss.
Arm and Instacart plunge after earnings
However, not all of the day's earnings news was well received by investors. Arms (ARM ) and maple bear (CAR ), the company that operates as instacart both fell after revealing their first financial results as publicly traded companies.
Arm, for its part, reported 28% year-over-year growth in top line in its fiscal second quarter and profits that doubled from a year earlier. However the semiconductor stocks
And even though Instacart revealed that third-quarter revenue rose 14% year over year to $764 million (more than analysts expected), CART stock fell 10.1%. CEO Fidji Simo's comments likely weighed on the stock, as he wrote in the shareholder letter inflation Interest rates
Tesla received another Sell rating
In news not related to results, tesla TSLA ) soared 5.5% after the electric vehicle (EV) maker received another Sell rating. On Wednesday night, HSBC analyst Michael Tyndall initiated coverage on TSLA with a Sell rating and a price target of $146, implying an expected drop of over 30% from current levels.
Tesla's valuation is based on its status as a "very expensive car company" and its "ambition... to be an innovator," Tyndall says. As a result, the stock is overvalued at current levels. The analyst also believes that other segments of the company, such as energy storage and artificial intelligence (AI) computing, face potential regulatory hurdles that could impact growth.
Tyndall is not the only analyst who has taken a bearish stance towards Tesla. According S&P Global Market Intelligence electric vehicle stocks
Powell's speech weighs on stocks
And although all these headlines remained financial world Attracting attention for most of the day, it was Powell's mid-afternoon speech that sent stocks tumbling at the close. In remarks prepared for a panel discussion in Washington DC today, Powell said the Federal Reserve is "not confident" it has reached a "sufficiently restrictive" level for interest rates to reduce inflation to its 2% target.
Powell added that the central bank will continue to monitor economic reports so as not to risk being "misled by a few good months of data."
At closing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average S&P 500 (-0.8% to 4,347) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.9% to 13,521) also finished solidly in the red.
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