Wall Street ends down as traders see no rate cuts before 2027

STORY: U.S. stocks ended lower on Thursday, with the Dow dropping just under half a percent, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each shedding more than a quarter of a percent.Investors remained cautious a day after Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned of economic uncertainty, with the Middle East conflict sending energy prices soaring and creating fears of inflation.Interest rate futures suggest traders see little chance of rate cuts before mid-2027, according to the CME's FedWatch tool. Mike Mussio is president of FBB Capital Partners."We have another down day on Wall Street in the wake of the Fed basically saying they're not going to lower rates. The Fed saying that inflation is a little bit higher than they wish it would be, unemployment is a little bit worse than they wish it would be, and that the conflict or war in Iran is not really helping matters. [FLASH] We haven't seen this degree of volatility for this kind of long period of time in almost a year since Liberation Day. And absent new data that would indicate that there are reasons not to have volatility, this is probably something investors are going to be stuck with at least through the end of the quarter, which is the next couple of weeks. And we'll see where it goes from there."The S&P 500 has lost more than 3% so far this year and is trading at four-month lows.Among individual movers, shares of Micron Technology dropped nearly 4% after the memory chipmaker's quarterly forecast failed to impress investors despite the company seeing strong demand related to AI.Shares of AI chip powerhouse Nvidia, the world's most valuable company, lost 1%.And shares of Tesla slid more than 3% on news that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has escalated its probe into more than 3 million Tesla vehicles with Full Self-Driving driver-assistance. The investigation is tied to concerns the system may fail to detect or warn drivers in poor visibility.