The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite ended the first trading session of 2024 lower, weighed by Apple shares falling after a broker downgrade and declines among other big-tech names triggered higher Treasury yields. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe says that the S&P/TSX Composite Index also started 2024 negatively, pulled down by losses in technology and financial shares. The lacklustre session follows a year where Wall Street's three major indexes notched double-digit gains on the back of optimism around artificial intelligence and stabilizing inflation. However, equities were pressured on Tuesday as U.S. and Canadian government bond yields climbed, with the yield on U.S. 10-year notes ticking above 4.00 per cent to a two-week high. Such movement in Treasury yields reflected investors' tempered expectations around cuts this year in U.S. interest rates. This, in turn, weighed on growth stocks, especially tech stocks. Apple fell 3.6 per cent after Barclays downgraded the tech giant to "underweight," citing weakening iPhone demand. Other megacap stocks also declined, including Nvidia, Meta Platforms and Microsoft, which all slipped at least 1.4 per cent.