Equities Hit A Speed Bump As Semis Slide And Yields Climb

James Picerno 7.01K Followers Follow Summary Stocks extended their decline for a third straight session on Aug. 18, renewing debate over the durability of the equity rally at a moment when rising Treasury yields, persistent inflation concerns, and a still‑simmering conflict with Iran threaten to keep pressure on risk assets. The S&P 500 remains near record territory, but yesterday’s pullback was driven by weakness in semiconductor stocks, a leadership group that has powered much of the market’s advance. The 10‑year yield eased slightly yesterday, but at 4.71% it is up sharply from March and increasingly attractive as an alternative to a richly valued equity market that’s jumped more than 20% over the past year. Getty Images Stocks extended their decline for a third straight session on Tuesday (Aug. 18), renewing debate over the durability of the equity rally at a moment when rising Treasury yields, persistent inflation concerns, and a still‑simmering conflict with Iran threaten to keep pressure This article was written by James Picerno 7.01K Followers Follow James Picerno is the director of analytics at The Milwaukee Co., a wealth manager that is the adviser to The Brinsmere Funds, a pair of global asset allocation ETFs. He also edits CapitalSpectator.com and The US Business Cycle Research Report (CapitalSpectator.com/premium-research). He is the author of three books, including "Quantitative Investment Portfolio Analytics In R: An Introduction To R For Modeling Portfolio Risk and Return." Previously he was a financial journalist at Bloomberg and before that at Dow Jones.