NEW YORK — US stocks finished lower on Tuesday, breaking a three-session string of record closing highs, as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the US central bank needs to balance inflation concerns with a weakening job market in its coming interest rate decisions.
The Nasdaq led declines, with shares of Nvidia falling 2.8 percent after rising in the previous session, when the chipmaker said it plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI.
Amazon.com, Microsoft and Apple also were lower.
In comments Tuesday, Powell offered little hint of when he thinks the Fed might next cut interest rates. The Fed last week cut rates for the first time this year and indicated further cuts may be coming.
“The big event of the day was Powell’s speech. He was somewhat on the dovish side, but also he showed cautiousness, and that indicates that while he left the door open for another rate cut, there was really no hint of when and how much the next rate cut could be,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.
“The market began to sell off on that,” he said, adding: “It was also ripe for some sort of a pullback.”
Powell also said equity prices are fairly highly valued. The three major US indexes registered record closing highs for the previous three sessions.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 88.76 points, or 0.19 percent, to 46,292.78, the S&P 500 lost 36.83 points, or 0.55 percent, to 6,656.92 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC lost 215.50 points, or 0.95 percent, to 22,573.47.
