{"id":818843,"date":"2026-08-19T14:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T14:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/818843\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T14:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T14:32:09","slug":"us-stocks-look-to-halt-their-3-day-slide-as-pressure-from-the-bond-market-eases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/818843\/","title":{"rendered":"US stocks look to halt their 3-day slide as pressure from the bond market eases"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 U.S. stocks are ticking higher Wednesday after the U.S. Treasury Department said it will buy more U.S. government bonds in a move that eased pressure on financial markets worldwide. Strong profit reports for the spring from Estee Lauder, Target<\/a> and other U.S. companies are also helping to support the stock market. <\/p>\n

The S&P 500 rose 0.2% and is on track for its first gain in four days<\/a> after setting its all-time high<\/a> last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 220 points, or 0.1%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% lower.<\/p>\n

The stock market has been under growing strain<\/a> as worries about inflation<\/a>, big government debts<\/a> and other factors drive Treasury yields higher in the bond market. That ultimately makes borrowing money more expensive<\/a> for everyone, which slows the economy and undercuts prices for stocks and other investments. <\/p>\n

But Treasury yields fell in the morning after the U.S. Treasury Department said it will at least double the size of its planned purchases of longer-term Treasurys from Sept. 9 through Nov. 4. The department said it\u2019s doing so \u201cto provide greater liquidity support in longer-dated nominal sectors where there is consistent strong sponsorship from market participants.\u201d<\/p>\n

These longer-term 10- and 30-year Treasurys are less beholden to the Federal Reserve, which can raise or lower very short-term interest rates for overnight loans. President Donald Trump has lobbied for the Fed to lower interest rates to help the economy.<\/p>\n

Instead, longer-term yields are set by investors in the bond market, who are deciding how much interest they need to get paid by the U.S. government in exchange for lending it money. And recently, they have been demanding more in interest to make up for the growing risks of high inflation, continued government deficits and other factors.<\/p>\n

After the Treasury department\u2019s announcement, the yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to 4.64% from 4.71% late Tuesday, which is a notable move for the bond market. It, though, remains well above its 3.97% level from before the war with Iran<\/a> sent oil prices and worries about inflation much higher.<\/p>\n

The 30-year Treasury yield, which has recently touched its highest level since 2007, fell more sharply to 5.19% from 5.28% late Tuesday. <\/p>\n

On Wall Street, Moderna and Merck helped lead the market after they announced encouraging results from a study of a cancer vaccine they co-developed. The new drug showed better recurrence-free survival in melanoma patients who had a combination of it and Keytruda, a prescription immunotherapy drug made by Merck, than with Keytruda alone.<\/p>\n

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Moderna soared 126.9%, while Merck jumped 11.5%.<\/p>\n

The continuing parade of U.S. companies to report bigger profits for the spring than analysts expected, meanwhile, continues to support stocks. <\/p>\n

Estee Lauder rallied 15.6% after CEO St\u00e9phane de La Faverie said a key measure of its revenue growth accelerated for a fourth straight quarter. It reported growth in revenue around the world, with the strongest in mainland China. <\/p>\n

The skin care company reported earnings per share of 39 cents, after excluding some restructuring and other one-time expenses. That\u2019s up from just 9 cents a year earlier and was better than the 32 cents that analysts expected, according to FactSet.<\/p>\n

Such growth is imperative because stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate profits over the long term. And strong growth helps allay criticism that stock prices shot too high in their runs to records. <\/p>\n

Target<\/a> rose 4.7%, Lowe\u2019s added 4.2% and homebuilder Toll Brothers climbed 7.1% after they all also reported better profits for the latest quarter than expected.<\/p>\n

They helped offset drops for some Big Tech stocks, which restrained the overall market. Broadcom fell 5.5%, for example, and was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500. It and other winners of the artificial-intelligence<\/a> boom have been swinging<\/a>sharply<\/a> through the summer on worries<\/a> that their stocks may have shot too high and that the AI frenzy may not be sustainable if it doesn\u2019t produce big-enough profits. <\/p>\n

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mostly lower in Asia and mixed in Europe. <\/p>\n

Tokyo\u2019s Nikkei 225 sank 3.2%. South Korea\u2019s Kospi, which has been home to some of the world\u2019s sharpest swings because of its heavy reliance on AI stocks, slumped 5.8%.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Writers Michelle Chapman, Chan Ho-him, Mike Stobbe and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 U.S. stocks are ticking higher Wednesday after the U.S. Treasury Department said it will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[37246,28,12,8877,7905,793,851,801,207496,37034,53615,11158,347367,347368,170934,800,965],"class_list":["post-818843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-broadcom-inc","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-federal-reserve-system","tag-financial-markets","tag-general-news","tag-inc","tag-iran","tag-lowes-companies","tag-merck-kgaa","tag-moderna","tag-stocks-and-bonds","tag-stphane-de-la-faverie","tag-the-este-lauder-companies","tag-toll-brothers","tag-washington-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}