STORY: U.S. stocks closed lower for a second straight session on Wednesday, with the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all losing roughly a quarter to a third of a percent.
Investors are trying to gauge the trajectory of rate cuts from the Federal Reserve as it tries to support a flagging labor market without stoking inflation.
:: File
Fed officials have staked out arguments on both sides of the policy divide, with Chair Jerome Powell this week emphasizing the tightrope the central bank must walk in making its upcoming decisions.
Alexander Morris is CEO and chief investment officer at F/m Investments.
“I think the Fed will have two more cuts this year as they well predict. At this point, when things are uncertain, when dispersion is high, sticking to a narrative becomes far more critical for the (Fed) Chair. Jay Powell is looking to execute a perfect landing. We talked about hard, soft or otherwise, but let's just say a landing of some sort, ideally, as perfect as he can. And the best way to do that is to leave either the board entirely or certainly the chairmanship mid-next year with inflation on a good path and the Fed with some credibility restored.”
Among Wednesday's notable stock moves, Freeport-McMoRan plunged 17% after it declared force majeure at its Grasberg mine in Indonesia and said it is expecting consolidated sales to be lower for copper and gold in the third quarter.
The company earlier this month said it had temporarily halted mining at Grasberg after heavy mudflows blocked access to parts of its underground mine, killing two workers.
Shares of Micron Technology ended nearly 3% lower despite the memory chipmaker forecasting first-quarter revenue above market estimates.
:: Oracle
And shares of Oracle, which are up about 85% this year, declined more than 1.5% after Bloomberg News said the company was looking to raise $15 billion in corporate bond sales.
