Stock Market Today: Dow Futures Waver, Bitcoin Prices Slide, HP Stock Flies Text size Wall Street weighs indications from the Federal Reserve that it will move aggressively to tighten monetary policy. Dreamstime Stocks were pausing Thursday, after having experienced steep declines for two straight days. A calming bond market helped, too.Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1 point after the index retreated 144 points on Wednesday. S&P 500 futures signaled a start 0.2% higher. The technology-focused Nasdaq Composite was poised to rise 0.3%. All three indices dropped Tuesday and Wednesday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq falling 2.2% and 4.4%, respectively.“Futures are bouncing slightly… as markets digest the declines of the past two days,” wrote Tom Essaye, founder of Sevens Report Research.Markets are digesting the latest developments from the Federal Reserve. Minutes from the Fed’s March meeting, released Wednesday, confirmed what Fed Governor Lael Brainard said on Tuesday, which is that the central bank will soon reduce the size of its balance sheet by letting its bondholdings expire without reinvesting the proceeds. The minutes also made it seem more than plausible that an interest rate hike of a half a percentage point — rather than the standard quarter point — is in the cards in the near term. A more aggressive rate hike is meant to curb economic demand in order to lower high inflation.What seems new to the bond markets this week is that the Fed is indeed close to beginning its balance sheet reduction by $ 95 billion per month. That means less money moving into Treasury bonds, lowering bond prices and lifting their yields. The 10-year Treasury yield has risen to 2.6% from 2.41% at Monday’s close.That surge in bond yields is what caused technology stocks to suffer big losses this week. Higher yields on long-dated government bonds make future profits less valuable and many fast-growing tech companies are valued on the basis that they’ll churn out a bulk of their profit many years into the future.Now, tech stocks are rising as the bond market calms down. The 10-year Treasury yield was a tick below its 2.61% closing level Wednesday.Overseas, the pan-European Stoxx 600 was 0.4% higher, and Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 lost 1.7%, in line with other Asian indexes, which moved lower in a catch-up with Wall Street.In the digital asset space, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were under pressure. Bitcoin prices were down 4% over the past 24 hours to below $ 43,500, with smaller peer ether also 4% lower to above $ 3,200. Bitcoin prices neared $ 47,000 earlier this week while ether was trading above $ 3,500 recently.Here are three stocks on the move Thursday: JD.com (ticker: JD) fell 1.5% in US premarket trading following news that the group’s founder, Richard Liu, exited as CEO of the Chinese e-commerce giant with immediate effect. The company’s president, Lei Xu, will take over, while Liu will remain as chair. Shell (SHEL) fell 1% in the premarket after the oil major said it expects to write down up to $ 5 billion in the first quarter following its decision to pull out of Russia, warning that cash flows from operations would be negatively impacted. HP Inc. (HPQ) jumped near 13% in the premarket after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A and BRK.B) revealed it had taken a stake in the computer and printer maker.Write to Jacob Sonenshine at [email protected] and Jack Denton at [email protected]