S&P 500, Dow turn positive after turbulent start to September

U.S. stocks pared heavy losses Thursday in the final hour of a volatile session as the major averages looked to recover from their biggest August percentage declines since 2015.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 150 points after a nearly 300-point plunge, and the S&P 500 climbed 0.3%, clawing back from a loss of more than 1%. The Nasdaq was an outlier, capping the day down 0.3% but well off session lows of nearly 2%.

Meanwhile, the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury yield reached 3.267%, its highest level since June as investors brace for more aggressive interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve later this month.

A volatile start to September comes on the heels of four straight sessions of selling amid renewed fears of restrictive monetary policy and a potential recession.

In August, the benchmark S&P 500 fell 4.2%, the Dow was down 4.1%, and the Nasdaq posted a monthly loss of 4.6%.

“A soft landing looks pretty unlikely,” Wells Fargo Head of Macro Strategy Mike Schumacher told Yahoo Finance Live. “A lot of things would have to go incredibly well — you’d have to have the energy situation ease, which is shy of a miracle at this point, COVID probably has to be pretty moderate if you think about a surge this fall or this winter.”

Nvidia shares (NVDA) were among Thursday’s biggest movers, falling nearly 8% after the chipmaker said U.S. officials ordered the company to halt sales to China of two of its top computing chips used for artificial intelligence. Nvidia may…