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U.S. Stocks Fall Ahead of Fed Symposium

By Paul Vigna

Welcome to Evening MoneyBeat, WSJ's closing-bell roundup of all the news and developments in the capital markets. To receive this newsletter, click here: http://on.wsj.com/MoneyBeatEveningSignup

Market Snap at Wed, 24 Aug 2016 17:11:28 -0400 ET

S&P 500 -0.52%

↓ 2175.44

DJIA -0.35%

↓ 18481.48

Nasdaq Comp -0.81%

↓ 5217.69

U.S. 10 Year -4/32

↑ 1.563%

Crude Oil -2.7%

↓ $46.8

Gold -1.4%

↓ $1327.30

Yen/Dollar -0.03%

↓ $100.42

Euro/Dollar 0.01%

↑ $1.13

How We Got Here

U.S. stock traders took National Waffle Day* to heart, because that's just what the market did on Wednesday - waffle.

Ahead of the start tomorrow of the Fed's big Wyoming symposium, major U.S. indexes fell modestly, continuing a pattern of narrow trading that's been in place this week. There are a raft of wonkish and not-so-wonkish questions that should or could be addressed at the meeting. Are negative rates hurting rather than helping? Will the Fed abandon its inflation target and adopt alternative tools to guide its policy? Will Janet Yellen signal a rate-hike when she speaks on Friday?

This last question is, of course, the most immediate concern. The Fed's rate-setting committee meets next in September, and while the market is still largely guessing against a rate increase, several officials lately have been sounding optimistic tones on the economy. You could read those as hints that a hike is coming sooner rather than later. Of course, nobody knows for sure, which is why Ms. Yellen's speech will be so closely followed.

Elsewhere, oil fell after a report showed U.S. crude stocks higher than expected, offsetting rumors about OPEC cuts. A report on home sales showed a decrease in July, the first drop since February.

*No kidding, it really is National Waffle Day, which apparently is the anniversary of the first patent covering a waffle iron, though we can't say who made this an "official" day.

Coming Up

Data Front: Durable Goods Orders (8:30 AM ET); Jobless Claims (8:30 AM ET); EIA Natural Gas Report (10:30 AM ET).

Fedspeak: First day of Kansas City Fed's monetary-policy symposium in Wyoming; Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Index (11:00 AM ET).

Earnings: Brocade Communications, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, GameStop, Michaels Cos., Movado, Tiffany.

MoneyBeat Podcast

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In an encore presentation, the MoneyBeat crew examines how the commodities world impacts the economy just as much as our every day lives.

Tweet of the Day

Kids today learn about sex and Alexander Hamilton much sooner than I did. -- Conan O'Brien @ConanOBrien

Today's Video

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A team of researchers from Harvard University has created the first autonomous, untethered, and entirely soft robot. WSJ's Monika Auger reports.

Number of the Day

$300 million

The amount American mutual funds spend annually on printed reports for investors, about 440 million reports that chew up 2 million trees.

Must Reads

Italy Earthquake Devastates Several Towns, Kills Dozens: A 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck central Italy early Wednesday, killing 120 people and leaving many trapped beneath the rubble of buildings that collapsed while they slept.

Stocks Slip, Along With Oil Prices: U.S. stocks slipped in quiet trade Wednesday, while the price of oil took a fresh fall.

U.S. Joins Turkish Forces in Push Against Islamic State in Syria: Turkish tanks, American warplanes and Syrian rebels joined forces Wednesday in a major cross-border assault into northern Syria that quickly pushed Islamic State forces from a strategic border town, officials from the U.S. and Turkey said.

Earth-like Planet Discovered Near Solar System: European astronomers on Wednesday announced their discovery of a small rocky planet potentially hospitable to life circling the star closest to our own solar system—our nearest neighbor in a galaxy dense with unexplored alien worlds.

Attack on American University of Afghanistan Wounds 14: Militants launched an attack on the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul during evening classes Wednesday, wounding at least 14 people as panicked students and staff fled.

Buffett Could Lose an $8-Per-Second Windfall on Dow Chemical Stock: The Dow Jones Industrial Average's recent rise has lifted many stocks in Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio, but the rally in Dow Chemical has put the chemical firm's dividends to Warren Buffett's company at risk.

Flight of the Concord: R3 CEV, the much-watched but opaque startup that brought together more than 60 banks in an effort to build a blockchain-based platform for the financial industry, finally took the wraps off its plans, filing a patent application for software within a new platform it calls Concord.

Print Is Dead? Not in Mutual-Fund Reports: American mutual funds estimate they spend more than $300 million every year chewing up 2 million trees to print and send investors 440 million densely written reports—which many recipients promptly toss out unread.

American Banks Set Name for Venmo-Killer: The nation's banks plan to name their reinvigorated person-to-person payment service "Zelle" and aim to launch the new brand at a payments-industry conference in October, according to people familiar with the matter.

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