Wall Street tramples water in the face of fear of global growth By Reuters

By Shreyashi Sanyal

(Reuters) – The main Wall Street indexes Wednesday crushed global growth fears and the US yield curve has prolonged the inversion, pushing investors to remain on the sidelines.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ 🙂 was a brilliant spot, up 0.87% after three consecutive days of losses.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yields slid Wednesday, but reached lower levels than ever during the night, as investors remain focused on the dovishness of the central bank around the world. The reversal, if it goes on, could indicate that a recession is likely in one to two years.

US stocks have been affected by the slowdown in global economic growth since last week, following weak US, European and Japanese plant data, as well as weak consumer confidence in March of this week.

Adding to concerns, Chinese data released Wednesday show that industrial profits have fallen the most since late 2011 in the first two months of the year.

"There have been recent fears and market agitations created by a buffet of concerns, it's not a thing, so investors are pausing this morning," said Andre Bakhos, chief executive of New Vines Capital LLC in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

"The yield curve that is reversed is another data point that investors are looking at, which is why our relations with China and global growth have become a source of concern."

The European Central Bank (ECB) said on Wednesday that it could further delay the expected rise in interest rates due to growing threats to growth a week after the Federal Reserve dropped any rate hike this year.

At 9:58 French time, the drop of 16.84 points, or 0.07%, to 25,640.89. The decline was 3.91 points, or 0.14%, to 2,814.55 and the drop of 14.89 points, or 0.19%, to 7,676.63.

The data showed that the US trade deficit fell more than expected in January, probably because Chinese soybean purchases led to a rebound in exports following three consecutive monthly declines.

Markets were also expecting further developments in the US-China trade talks and a new round of high-level talks was scheduled to begin on Thursday.

Industrials advanced 0.26%, the largest among the top 11 sectors in S & P, with airline stocks posting the largest gains. The S & P 500 airlines index rose 2.7%.

Centene Shares of (NYSE 🙂 Corp. slipped 7.74% after the health insurance company announced it would buy a smaller rival, WellCare Health Plans Inc., for $ 15.27 billion. WellCare shares jumped 10.23%.

Lennar Corp. (NYSE 🙂 rose 1.85% as the homebuilder expects an improvement in the housing market even after the absence of Wall Street estimates for the first quarter.

Falling issues outnumbered defenders for a ratio of 1.11 to 1 on the NYSE and a ratio of 1.43 to 1 on the Nasdaq.

The S & P index posted 27 new highs over 52 weeks and a new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 20 new highs and 14 new lows.