US stocks extend losses amid hawkish Fed minutes

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - Major indices in the US stock market opened lower Thursday, extending their losses on the previous session when the Federal Reserve minutes gave the central bank a hawkish tone.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 165 points, or 0.45%, to 36,241 at 10.10 a.m. EDT. The S&P 500 fell 23 points, or 0.5%, to 4,676. Both indices lost more than 1% apiece on Wednesday.

The Nasdaq declined 181 points, or 1.2%, to 14,919 after the tech-heavy index plummeted over 3% on previous session.

The Fed minutes released Wednesday showed that most members of the Federal Open Market Committee support moving on with tapering and interest rate increase more rapidly than markets anticipated.

Amid rising possibility of faster monetary tightening this year, the VIX volatility index, known as the fear index, was up 4.6% to climb above the critical level of 20 once again.

The dollar index was slightly up adding 0.04% to 96.21, while the yield on 10-year US Treasury notes gained 1.4% to 1.726%.

Precious metals were on downfall, with gold losing 1.1% to $1,789 per ounce and silver diving 3.4% to $22.03.

After losing 5.2% on Wednesday, price of Bitcoin fell another 8.4% to $42,800. The crypto market's total value was around $2.04 trillion with a 8.8% daily loss, according to data by digital asset price-tracking website CoinMarketCap.

Crude prices, on the other hand, gained around 1.7% with Brent crude trading at $81.94 per barrel and US benchmark West Texas Intermediate at $79.39.