After a few minutes of trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.7 percent, the broad S&P 500 fell 0.5 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.6 percent.
The yields on US government bonds with 10- and 30-year maturities rose sharply, reaching their highest levels since spring 2002 on Wednesday. This came ahead of a planned auction that day, at which 10-year government bonds worth the equivalent of SEK 391 billion (about $37 billion) were to be sold.
On Tuesday, yields fell, while all three major indexes on Wall Street rose, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closing at new record highs.
