Wall St slips as higher oil prices, hawkish Fed bets weigh

Business Recorder reported that the main US stock indexes slipped on Monday as armed clashes involving the US and Iran lifted oil prices and revived inflation worries. The sell-off followed Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's tougher comments at the Jackson Hole symposium on Friday, which suggested borrowing costs could rise if inflation fails to ease toward the central bank's 2% target.

Market pricing now puts the odds of a September Fed rate increase above 60%, up from 41.4% a week earlier, based on CME's FedWatch data. Thomas Kikis of Standard Chartered said Warsh had removed any prospect of a cut. Mixed data added to the uncertainty, with July consumer inflation mild but the Fed's preferred PCE gauge hotter than expected, and the US employment report is due on September 4.

Intraday at 09:54 a.m., the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 350.75 points lower, or 0.65%, at 53,209.24, while the S&P 500 dropped 0.40% to 7,681.27 and the Nasdaq Composite shed 0.29% to 26,325.31. Energy shares bucked the trend after Brent crude rose nearly 1.71%, whereas utilities led sector losses, falling 1.7%.