The yield on the 10-year Treasury note climbed to 1.62% today, March 12. That’s a jump of 9 basis points on the day. (It takes 100 basis points to make up one percentage point.)
Following the recent pattern, the climb in yields meant a drop in the prices of technology stocks.
While the Standard & Poor’s 500 managed a 0.10% gain and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.90%, the NASDAQ Composite fell 0.59% and the NASDAQ 100, dominated by BIG TECH dropped 0.89%.
The small cap Russell 2000, which has been climbing recently on optimism about an increase in economic growth, gained 0.55% on the day.
The iShare MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM), which has been falling on days when U.S. bond yields climb on fears of what rising U.S. yields will do to emerging market debt and equities, lost 1.82%.
Two ETFs I follow to gauge the relative strength of technology versus economically sensitive sectors also fell into step with the Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) down 0.72% and the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF) adding 1.05%. The Invesco KBWB Bank ETF (KBWB) gained 1.92%.
Among BIG TECH stocks Apple (AAPL) fell 0.76%; Facebook (FB) dropped 2.00%; Amazon (AMZN) was lower by 0.77%; Alphabet (GOOG) slid 1.50%; and Microsoft (MSFT) lost 0.58%.
The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) fell 2.12% at the close today to drop into a Bear Market having lost more than 20% from its August high. That’s just in case you needed a reminder of how relentless the selling in the Treasury market has been,
