U.S. Fed officials are increasingly focused on the recent rise in term premium as a likely explanation for the relentless selling of government bonds that has brought long-term Treasury yields to their highest levels in more than a decade and a half.
The S&P 500 index capped off a busy week for markets on Friday by breaking below its 200-day moving average for the first time in more than six months and erased the last of its gains from a summer advance that peaked in late July.
Fuel prices, with the cost of gasoline and diesel at the pump both down from a month ago, don’t appear to be fazed by the escalating risks to oil in the Middle East from the Israel-Hamas war, but they are.