Bonds & Stocks
A selloff in technology shares dragged down the equity market, while uncertainties about the impacts of a trade war on the economy continued to weigh on sentiment. The S&P 500 dropped 1.3% and Nasdaq 100 slid 1.9%, with Nvidia Corp. leading a rout in megacaps. The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced one basis point to 4.29%.
Economy
US employers in February announced plans to reduce headcount at the fastest pace since early in the pandemic, led by cuts in the government sector as the Trump administration moved to shrink the federal workforce. Job-cut announcements totaled 172,017 in February, a 103% increase from last year and the most since July 2020.
World
The European Central Bank lowered interest rates for the sixth time since June and indicated that its cutting phase may be drawing to a close as inflation cools and the economy digests seismic shifts in geopolitics. The deposit rate was reduced by a quarter point to 2.5%, as predicted by all but one analyst in a Bloomberg survey.