Wall St ends lower as two-day rally fizzles

STORY: Wall Street finished slightly lower on Wednesday after briefly entering positive territory in a late-day rebound, but stocks were unable to sustain the rally as investors couldn't shake fears the Federal Reserve would keep interest rates higher for longer.

The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all ended down fractionally, after employment data showed U.S. labor demand remained strong, potentially giving the Fed reason to stay aggressive in its fight against inflation.

Eric Sterner is chief investment officer at Apollon Wealth Management.

"The markets continue to be in a tough spot as the Fed is looking to hike rates and we have to tame and bring down inflation to normal levels... And while we saw a rally over the past, a strong rally over the last two days, I think it's nothing more than a dead cat bounce and that investors were reacting to oversold conditions, but we have, I think, a long way to go from an inflation perspective and the Fed raising rates perspective before we see a sustainable rally that hopefully will trigger a new bull market."

Energy stocks jumped after OPEC and its allies agreed to cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day – or 2% of global demand – the deepest cut to output in more than 2 years.

Shares of Twitter lost momentum a day after surging 22% on Elon Musk's decision to proceed with his original offer to buy the social media company.

Shares of Tesla - the electric-car maker headed by Musk - fell more than 3% after a source told Reuters the billionaire and Twitter may soon reach an agreement to end their litigation over the $44-billion deal.