us stock indexes ended mixed on wednesday attempting to recover from tuesdays broadbased selloff following comments by federal reserve chairman jerome powell suggesting more interest rate rises may be necessary to tame inflation than investors were expecting on tuesday the dow jones industrial average fell 575 points or 172 to 32856 the sp 500 declined 62 points or 153 to 3986 and the nasdaq composite dropped 145 points or 125 to 11530 investors tuned in to the second day of fed chair powells semiannual monetary policy testimony to congress in which powell said the central bank has not made any decision on the size of a potential interest rate hike later this month despite strong labor market data and a rise in inflation in january powell in a testimony to the house financial services panel said the central bank has yet to decide how large an interest rate hike to impose at its next meeting in two weeks we have not made any decision about the march meeting were not going to do that until we see the additional data powell said while emphasizing that the fed is not on a preset path we will be guided by the incoming data and the evolving outlook he said see fed may stutterstep at end of interest rate hiking cycle for first time since 1990 what it means for financial markets on tuesday powell told the senate banking committee that the central bank was prepared to increase the pace of interest rate hikes if data indicated it was warranted to damp inflation the market has interpreted what hepowell said as being an indication that we may see higher rate hikes at the next meeting than we previously have expected and that the terminal rate will be higher than what markets had priced in a month or so ago richard flax chief investment officer at moneyfarm said before powells testimony wednesday youve seen the narrowing of the gap between market expectations and perhaps the fed dot plot at the last release said flax in a call powells comments on tuesday hammered government bonds driving shortterm 2year yields to the highest level since 2007 as the market increased bets that the fed may hike rates by 50 basis points in two weeks time and ultimately take rates as high as 565 by the end of this year according to cme fedwatch tool see stock market could take it hard as expectations grow for a 6 fed funds rate in data published wednesday job openings in the us fell in january to 108 million from 112 million in december the labor department said however the stillhigh number of available jobs suggested the labor market remained extremely strong the labor market remains extremely tight despite 450 basis points of rate hikes in the last year said ronald temple chief market strategist at lazard fridays employment report will give us more insight into the degree of tightness in the labor market but this report jobs openings report adds weight to the chair powells comments yesterday suggesting a 50basis point rate hike on march 22 could be in the cards see wall street sees smaller 225000 increase in us jobs in february a much larger gain might spur stiffer fed rate hike meanwhile us private payrolls rose by 242000 in february according to the payroll services firm adp on wednesday thats up from a revised 119000 in prior month economists polled by the wall street journal had forecast a gain of 205000 private sector jobs also see six of feds 12 districts reported little or no growth through end of february beige book the feds beige book survey showed us overall economic activity increased slightly in early 2023 while inflationary pressures still remained widespread though price increases moderated in many federal reserve districts the report was based on anecdotal information collected by the feds 12 regional banks and is published eight times each year before the policysetting federal open market committee meetings in other economic data the us trade deficit widened by 16 to 683 billion in january us imports rose 3 to 3258 billion in january while exports were up 34 to 2575 billion this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal