Brendan McDermid | Reuters
U.S. stock futures fell on Wednesday evening, with major stock indexes volatile as traders weighed another sharp interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 46 points, or 0.15%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.3% and 0.44%, respectively.
In Wednesday’s regular trading session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 522 points, or 1.70%, despite rising more than 300 points earlier in the day. The S&P 500 fell 1.71% and the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.79%.
The Fed raised interest rates by 0.75 percentage points for the third time in a row. Policymakers pledged to continue raising interest rates by as much as 4.6% in 2023 before pulling back on the fight against inflation, stoking Wall Street’s fears that the economy could slip into recession.
The central bank is expected to raise its year-end interest rate to 4.4% in 2022, continuing to take aggressive action against rising prices for the rest of the year.
“I think they should slow down,” DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey Gundlach said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime.” “Monetary policy has a long and volatile lag, but we have tightened for a while now,” he added, noting that the impact of tightening could lead to a recession.
On the economic front, the latest data on weekly jobless claims is expected at 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday.
