The price of oil slumped to its lowest level of the year on Tuesday and helped to restrain US stock indexes, which set records a day earlier.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 61.85 points, or 0.29 percent, to 21,467.14, the S&P 500 had lost 16.43 points, or 0.67 percent, to 2,437.03 and the Nasdaq Composite had dropped 50.98 points, or 0.82 percent, to 6,188.03.
Both the S&P 500 and Dow set records on Monday thanks to big gains from technology stocks.
The two-year yield dipped to 1.34% from 1.35% late Tuesday, and the 30-year yield fell to 2.73% from 2.74%. Drillers have gotten much more efficient at pulling oil out of the ground, which has helped supplies to balloon and weigh on prices. Many oil-producing countries have banded together to cut production in hopes of limiting supplies, but analysts are skeptical about how much they can influence prices. Markets elsewhere around the world were mixed, while stocks in mainland China got a small boost after they got the OK to join a widely followed index of emerging-market stocks.
The Dow fell as slides in shares of General Electric and those of Nike, recently down 2.1 percent and 1.4 percent respectively, outweighed gains in shares of Merck and those of Pfizer, recently up 1.5 percent and 1.2 percent respectively. But if the price of oil keeps dropping, that's at risk.
John Manley, chief equity strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management, is still optimistic that expectations for earnings across the market can keep rising.
Energy companies were also lower as the price of crude oil fell. "It may stop tomorrow, and if it does, well, I'll change my mind tomorrow". In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 0.5 percent, South Korea's Kospi lost 0.5 percent and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong dropped 0.6 percent. Tech stocks have led the S&P 500's 9.6 percent rally this year.
Nate Diaz sued by former management firm
Diaz wound up making a disclosed $500,000 for UFC 196 and $2 million for UFC 202 , though his final pay was likely much higher. According to documents obtained by TMZ , The Ballengee Group , who previously represented Diaz, filed the suit in L.A.
On the opposite end was homebuilder Lennar, which rose $1.13, or 2.1 percent, to $53.87 after reporting stronger revenue and earnings for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
Parexel International was up 3.9 percent to $87.19 after private equity firm Pamplona Capital is nearing a deal to acquire the pharmaceutical research services provider for more than $4.5 billion.
TREASURY YIELDS: Bond prices were flat. The 10-year Treasury yield ticked up to 2.17 percent from 2.16 percent late Tuesday.
Chipotle warned marketing and promotion costs would rise in the second quarter, from the first quarter, and that, "as a result, we expect other operating costs as a percentage of sales for the second quarter to be at or slightly higher than reported for the first quarter".
CURRENCIES: The British pound fell to $1.2639 from $1.2729 after Bank of England Governor Mark Carney cooled market expectations that the bank may soon raise interest rates. The euro rose to $1.1164 from $1.1128, and the dollar dipped to 111.32 Japanese yen from 111.41 yen.
COMMODITIES: Gold rose $2.30 to settle at $1,245.80 per ounce, silver slipped 4 cents to $16.37 per ounce and copper added 5 cents to $2.60 per pound. Natural gas rose 1 cent to $2.92 per 1,000 cubic feet, heating oil was flat at $1.40 per gallon and wholesale gasoline was virtually unchanged at $1.43 per gallon. While the French CAC 40 Index dipped by 0.3%, the German DAX Index and the UK's FTSE 100 Index dropped by 0.6% and 0.7%, respectively. Its stock rose $7.59, or 8.4 percent, to $97.55.
Comments