Dow plunges 600 points as surging Treasury yields, Walmart sales shock Wall Street

Stock indexes fell on Thursday and hovered near two-week lows, as rising Treasury yields dented risk appetite and disappointing results from retail bellwether Walmart added pressure along with rallying oil prices.In afternoon trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 605.14 points, or 1.1%, to 52,857.91.The S&P 500 lost 0.7%, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped more than 1%.Walmart shares fell 9% after it missed Wall Street expectations for quarterly comparable sales rising gasoline prices had shoppers reining in spending.

The report dragged the S&P 500 consumer staples index down 1.5%.Consumer discretionary fell 1.9%, putting it among the weakest sectors.Rival retailers also fell after Walmart’s earnings, with Albertsons down 1.5% and Costco down 2.3%.Another negative, said Mona Mahajan, head of investment strategy at Edward Jones, was US crude oil trading above $87, touching its highest level since late July.

She also pointed to upward pressure on bond yields as a further weight on stocks.Wall Street indexes had risen on Wednesday after the Treasury Department said it would spend more than double the expected amount on buying back bonds in a bid to slow gains in bond yields.On Thursday, however, stocks declined as yields resumed their advance.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he may again increase the volume of Treasury bonds the government will repurchase.

Yields on the 30-year and 10-year bonds pared gains briefly after his comments, before resuming their upward path.“There are a couple of headwinds that the markets woke up to today,” said Mahajan.“One was a resumption in the increase in bond yields across the curve that came despite yesterday’s Treasury move … it reversed very quickly, within 24 hours.”And after weaker-than-expected retail sales data for July and mixed labor market reports, investors were already monitoring consumer health, when the Walmart numbers came in weaker than expected.“There is som...