US STOCKS-Wall St turns higher as services data lifts hopes of Fed…

<br>By Medha Singh and Arjun Panchadar<br> <br>Oct 3 (Reuters) – U.S.
stocks turned positive in choppy trading on Thursday as U.S. services sector activity slowed to a three-year low, raising expectations of another interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve to stem a wider economic downturn.<br> <br>Wall Street’s main indexes dropped about 1% after the ISM’s non-manufacturing activity index for September fell to 52.6 from 56.4 the month before and below expectations of 55.0.

Still, a reading above 50 denoted an expansion in the sector.<br> <br>But the indexes were back in the positive territory as bets of a Fed rate cut in October jumped to 92.5% from 39.6% on Monday, according to CME Group’s Fed Watch tool. The Fed’s next policy meeting will be held at the end of the month.<br> <br>”The degradation of the data, especially the non-manufacturing data, kind of pushes that to the Fed doing another cut,” said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners in Pittsburgh.<br> <br>”This is very familiar to the post-2008 world where we get bad news and the market rallies because we are anticipating a rate cut.”<br> <br>Market participants now await a pivotal jobs report on Friday after dismal manufacturing and hiring data triggered two days of sharp losses, with the indexes recording their deepest one-day percentage slide in six weeks on Wednesday.<br> <br>PepsiCo Inc rose 4.1% after the company beat quarterly expectations as higher advertising and new low-calorie versions of Gatorade boosted demand for its beverages in North America.<br> <br>Its shares propped up the consumer staples sector by 0.75%.

Nine of the 11 major ngentot sectors were higher.<br> <br>The benchmark index is now 4.5% below its all-time high hit in July even though it came within striking distance of that level two weeks ago.<br> <br>At 11:17 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 19.02 points, or 0.07%, at 26,097.64, the S&P 500 was up 9.86 points, or 0.34%, at 2,897.47.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 40.45 points, or 0.52%, at 7,825.70.<br> <br>Leading the decliners on the S&P 500 was Corona maker Constellation Brands Inc, which fell about 6% as it took a $839 million mark down in the value of its investment in pot firm Canopy Growth during the quarter.<br> <br>Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.13-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 1.12-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.<br> <br>The S&P index recorded nine new 52-week highs and 20 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded two new highs and 82 new lows.<br> <br>(Reporting by Medha Singh and Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)<br>