US stocks end lower as Yellen hints December rate hike

In her first public comments since the Fed's meeting last week, Yellen's tone was upbeat as she said in a House testimony on Wednesday that the USA economy is "performing well" and a rate lift-off was a "live possibility" if economic data justifies it.

She said the decision on hiking interest rates in December will depend on the Fed's policy arm's assessment of the economic outlook at that time and "that assessment will be informed by all of the data that we received between now and then".

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 50.57 points, or 0.3 percent, to close at 17,867.58.

Oil prices erased their gains so far this week, falling 4 percent on Wednesday on tumbling gasoline prices and rising USA crude inventories.

The local currency fell to 60.64 euro cents from 60.78 cents yesterday, dropped to 80.11 yen from 80.66 yen, and declined to 4.1846 yuan from 4.2163 yuan. Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) gained 11.2% after reporting in-line Q3 deliveries, better-than-expected gross margins and Q4 delivery guidance that was ahead of consensus.

After the bell, shares of (FB.O) hit an all-time high of $109.34 following its earnings report, before paring gains to about 4%.

Shares were trader higher in Europe as well with the Stoxx Europe 600 up nearly 1%.

Electronic coupon company Groupon plummeted 26.3 percent as it reported a net loss of $27.6 million in the third quarter and forecast revenues of $815-$865 million in the fourth quarter.

Bond prices fell, mostly as a result of Yellen's comments.

At its December 15-16 meeting, the Fed will consider raising a key interest rate from a record low of near zero if the economy continues to grow at a strong enough pace to keep adding jobs and push annual inflation toward the Fed's 2% target, Ms Yellen said. Goto added that a number above 165,000-170,00 along with a tick up in wages would prompt the Fed to start hiking rates in December.

Workers walk past an electronic stock indicator showing the Nikkei 225 was up 1 percent at 19,116.41 in Tokyo Thursday, November 5, 2015. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the October jobs data Friday. Investors expect that USA employers added 185,000 jobs in October and that the unemployment rate remained steady at 5.1 percent. Negative interest rates are not only artificially low, but entirely impossible in unhampered loan markets - although many would love to borrow, nobody would pay for somebody to borrow from them.

"We think they will end up talking in the 5s".

Since 1999, such optimism at year-end typically led to subdued market performance.

China's Shanghai Composite Index jumped 3 percent to 3,562.56 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng inched up 0.1 percent to 23,072.81.

Anthony Mirhaydari is founder of the Edge and Edge Pro investment advisory newsletters.