Stock Market News For Mar 7, 2019
Zacks Investment Research | Mar 06, 2019 09:49PM ET
Benchmarks ended in the red on Wednesday after a slew of weak economic reports weighed on the markets. Fed’s Beige Book provided a rather gloomy picture of the U.S. economy in the period between January and February, citing partial government shutdown as the primary reason behind such a slowdown. Meanwhile, Trump urged U.S. negotiators to strike a trade with China so that markets might finally find the catalyst required for growth.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) decreased 0.5%, to close at 25,673.46. The S&P 500 decreased 0.7% to close at 2,771.45. The tech-laden Nasdaq Composite Index closed at 7,505.92, losing 0.09%. The fear-gauge CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) increased 6.8% to close at 15.74. Decliners outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by a 1.96-to-1 ratio. On Nasdaq, a 2.47-to-1 ratio favored declining issues.
How Did the Benchmarks Perform?
The Dow lost 133.2 points to end the session in negative territory. Losses for the 30-stock index were buoyed by a dip of about 3.6% in the shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBA) . The Dow Transports dipped 0.5% to post its ninth decline on the trot, marking the longest streak of losses since 2009.
The S&P 500 declined 18.2 points to also end in the red. Of the 11 major sectors of the S&P 500, nine ended in the negative territory, with healthcare and energy leading the decliners. The Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSE:XLV) and the Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSE:XLE) lost 1.5% and 1.3%, respectively.
Shares of Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NKTR) and HCA Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:HCA) declined 5.2% and 4.9%, respectively and weighed on the broader index. Further, oil prices slid 0.6% after the Energy Information Administration announced that U.S. crude inventories increased to 7.1 million barrels last week. Such developments also weighed on the S&P 500.
Meanwhile, the Nasdaq lost 70.4 points to also end in negative territory. This marked the tech-laden index’s first three-day decline this year. You can see Zacks Investment Research
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