Wall Street shows signs of exhaustion, Dow Jones adds 5 points

NEW YORK, New York — U.S. stocks showed signs of exhaustion on Wednesday as the new month began, with only the Dow Jones making an advance, an albeit weak one at that.

U.S. Treasury yields continued to trend higher, with the 10-year note topping four percent, for the first time in 3 months.

"We are currently in the chop period between central banks winding down interest rate increase cycles and seeing what impact those increases will have on the real economy," William Northey, senior investment director at U.S. Bank Wealth Management told CNBC Wednesday. "Performance for the first two months of the year was primarily influenced by marginal changes in expectations for the appropriate path of monetary policy in 2023."

"We anticipate a better environment for bonds but expect ongoing, two-sided volatility for global equities and U.S. equities as the market gauges consumer health and corporate activity," Northey said.

The Dow Jones industrials inched up 5.14 points or 0.02 percent to 32,661.84.

The Nasdaq Composite slid 76.06 points or 0.66 percent to 11,379.48.

The Standard and Poor’s 500 dropped 18.76 points or 0.47 percent to 3,951.39.

Despite the spike higher in Treasury yields, and the lacklustre trading on Wall Street, the recent rally in the U.S. dollar too was showing signs of exhaustion Wednesday.

Around the U.S. close the euro had stormed up to 1.0668, a gain of 0.91 percent.

The Japanese yen inched down 0.09 percent to 136.23. The Canadian dollar rose to 1.3592. The British pound was little changed at 1.2025.

The Swiss franc traded at 0.9398, while the Australian dollar gained 0.44 percent to 0.6758.

The best mover on the day was the New Zealand dollar which rallied 1.22 percent to 0.6259.