Wall Street Today | S&P 500 Snaps Longest Win Streak in Two Years After Powell Speech

"We know that ongoing progress toward our 2% goal is not assured: Inflation has given us a few head fakes," Powell said, in remarks on a panel at the International Monetary Fund. Powell said the Fed "will not hesitate" to raise interest rates again if it becomes appropriate. At the same time, the Fed will be cautious in its future decisions, he said.

"We will continue to move carefully, however, allowing us to address both the risk of being misled by a few good months of data, and the risk of overtightening," Powell said. But later, Powell added that the biggest mistake the Fed could make would be to fail to get inflation under control.

The Treasury's auction of 30-year bonds on Thursday went about as bad as it could, indicating investor reluctance to own long-dated government securities. "Today's 30-year auction was very weak," wrote Ben Jeffery, a strategist at BMO Capital Markets. The 30-year auction was part of the government's $112 billion in debt sale and followed an uneventful 10-year auction on Wednesday.

The 30-year rose 0.143 percentage point to 4.797% from yesterday's close following the auction. The reaction makes sense. When demand is weak, yields typically move higher and it's the inverse when demand is strong.

Oil futures climbed Thursday, finishing higher after a two-day drop that left crude at its lowest since mid-July.

Oil-market fundamentals do not point to an impending supply crisis, though risks of supply disruption are still higher than they were prior to the Hamas attack on Israel, said Jim Burkhard, vice president and head of research for Oil Markets, Energy and Mobility, at S&P Global Commodity Insights.

"The Israel-Hamas war certainly altered political trends in the Middle East, but it's ability to impact oil market fundamentals will be limited so long as the war is contained," he said in emailed market commentary.

The analysts, led by Michael Tyndall, rated Tesla at the equivalent of sell and with a price target of $146, which represents a downside of more than 30% over Thursday prices.