Nasdaq rises as yields slide, S&P 500 is flat

The Nasdaq Composite rose on Thursday while the S&P 500 dipped slightly, as bond yields slid and Wall Street continued to weigh recession risks.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 89 points, or 0.3%. The S&P 500 was little changed, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.6%.

Those moves come as the yield on the 10-year Treasury note dipped to its lowest level in roughly two weeks, or below 3.1%, as investors mulled over the likelihood of a recession. Yields move inversely to prices.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell spoke on monetary policy with congressional lawmakers for a second day Thursday. On Wednesday, Powell said the central bank is "strongly committed" to bringing down inflation. He also noted that a recession is a "possibility," a fear that has continued to weigh on Wall Street.

"Definitively, we are going into a recession. How severe that recession is yet to be seen," said Nick Giacoumakis, president of NEIRG Wealth Management.

"It depends on so many factors that I don't think really anybody can pinpoint whether it's going to be a really, really deep, hard recession or it's going to be a hard landing in a more mild recession."

UBS is the latest investment bank this week to raise its odds of a recession to 69%, citing lackluster data last week in housing, industrial production and capital goods.

"We are now watching out for any further negative follow-through or whether we simply hit a local peak and some growth momentum in the hard data resumes," UBS said in a Thursday note.

Citigroup increased its odds of a recession to 50%, citing a slide in consumer demand that could make it more difficult for the Federal Reserve to achieve a soft landing.

Goldman Sachs said the probability of a downturn is "higher and more front-loaded" than it was previously. In a Monday note, the firm raised its bet of a U.S. recession to 30%, up from 15%, over the next year.

On the other hand, a top strategist at JPMorgan on Thursday said he believes the U.S. economy will dodge a recession altogether, with the stock market making back any losses in the back half of the year.

On Thursday, the Labor Department said U.S. weekly jobless claims fell 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 229,000 for the week ended June 18, though the labor market remains tight.