US STOCKS-Wall St stays lower after Fed minutes; retailers weak
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Best Buy down on weak outlook
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Kohl's slips on quarterly sales miss
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Indexes: Dow down 0.2%, S&P 500 down 0.2%, Nasdaq down 0.7%
(Updates to after Fed minutes, adds NEW YORK dateline)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK, Nov 21 (Reuters) -
The S&P 500 stayed lower on Tuesday afternoon after minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting showed officials agreed to take a cautious approach to raising U.S. interest rates going forward.
U.S. central bank officials also said they would only need to hike rates if incoming information showed a lack of progress in lowering inflation, according to
minutes
from the Oct. 31-Nov. 1 meeting.
"No surprises from the Fed meeting minutes," said Gene Goldman, chief investment officer at Cetera Investment Management. Goldman noted that the Fed said on Nov. 1 that further hikes were possible, yet Fed Chair Jerome Powell in a news conference "downplayed the need to raise rates again. Markets hoped for some type of clarification on this inconsistency."
Stocks began the day lower after recent strong gains, partly fueled by the view that the Fed may be done hiking rates.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 75.63 points, or 0.22%, to 35,075.41, the S&P 500 lost 10.25 points, or 0.23%, to 4,537.13 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 93.81 points, or 0.66%, to 14,190.73.
Shares of Nvidia, which is to report third-quarter results after the closing bell, were down 0.9%.
Also weighing on stocks were some disappointing corporate updates from U.S. retailers.
Best Buy shares slipped after the electronics retailer said it expects a steeper drop in annual comparable sales, while Kohl's Corp dropped after missing third-quarter sales estimates.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.68-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.98-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 30 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 51 new highs and 105 new lows.
(Additional reporting by Sinead Carew in New York, and Amruta Khandekar and Shristi Achar A; Editing by Maju Samuel, Pooja Desai and David Gregorio)
