NEW YORK — Wall Street closed out its best week since March with a quiet finish on Friday, and stocks drifted to modest losses.
The S&P 500 fell 16.25 points, or 0.4%, to 4,409.59 after wobbling through the day. It still closed out a fifth straight winning week for its longest such streak since November 2021, and it remains close to its highest level since April 2022.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 108.94, or 0.3%, to 34,299.12, and the Nasdaq composite fell 93.25, or 0.7%, to 13,689.57.
Humana dropped 3.9% for one of the S&P 500’s sharpest losses after becoming the latest health insurer to warn about rising costs because of pent-up demand for medical services. Health insurance giant UnitedHealth issued a similar warning earlier in the week.
Treasury yields rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 3.76% from 3.72% late Thursday.
The yield on the two-year Treasury, which moves more on expectations for the Federal Reserve, rose to 4.72% from 4.65%.
The Fed held its benchmark interest rate steady at its meeting this week but warned that it could raise rates twice more this year. The central bank’s next meeting will run from July 25-26, and Wall Street is betting that it will raise rates. Traders are also mostly convinced that this will be the last increase of the year, according to data from CME Group.
Before taking its pause this week, the Fed had raised interest rates at 10 straight meetings since March 2022. Its goal has been to slow the economy to cool inflation but not so much that it causes a recession.
“The idea that the Fed is pausing and taking time to see what the cumulative effect is on the economy from a policy standpoint, is the right move for them,”