Stocks trim losses as Wall Street attempts to recover from Friday’s sell-off

Stocks slipped on Monday but bounced back from their earlier losses as traders fought to regain their footing amid increasing concerns over rising rates and tighter U.S. monetary policy.

The major averages were well off their session lows around midday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly turned positive for the session after falling roughly 300 points earlier in the day. It was last down 22 points, or 0.07%%. The S&P 500 dipped 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite was off by 0.49%.

Tech was the worst-performing S&P 500 sector as rates rose, while energy and utilities outperformed. Dow Inc and Salesforce were the biggest laggards in the 30-stock Dow Industrials; those losses were mitigated by 1% advances in Walmart and Chevron.

Wall Street suffered a sharp sell-off on Friday, when Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s short and blunt remarks in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, appeared to extinguish hopes of the central bank changing its aggressive course of rate hikes in the months ahead.

The Dow fell 1,008 points, or just over 3%, for its worst day since May. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell 3.4% and 3.9%, respectively, for their worst days since June. The drop erased the August gains for all three averages.

“While the aggressive and unrelenting selling from Friday is abating, there isn’t much genuine buy demand – even the bulls want to get through some of this week’s major macro events (including China’s PMIs and the Eurozone CPI on Wed and the US jobs report on Friday) before stepping back in on the long side,” wrote Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge. “The late-summer attendance/volume conditions make the environment even more treacherous than normal, while Sept’s horrible seasonals are just one more factor keeping people on edge.”

The rest of the week brings more Fed speeches, including Vice Chair Lael Brainard on Monday, before August’s nonfarm payrolls report on Friday.

Correction: Lael Brainard was slated to speak Monday. A previous version misstated the day.