U.S. Market Indexes Lower for Seventh Consecutive Day
U.S. market indexes were lower Wednesday for the seventh consecutive day of losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 17959.64 for a loss of -77.46 points or -0.43 percent. The S&P 500 closed at 2097.94 for a loss of -13.78 points or -0.65 percent. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 5105.57 for a loss of -48.01 points or -0.93 percent. The VIX Volatility Index was higher at 19.32 for a gain of 0.76 points or 4.09 percent.
Wednesday’s Market Movers
The leading market factor for the stock market’s losses continues to be election uncertainty. Economic reports also affecting the market on Wednesday included the following:
- FOMC November meeting announcement with no change to central bank borrowing rate at 0.25 percent to 0.50 percent
- Mortgage applications down 1.2 percent according to the MBA Mortgage Applications report
- ADP private sector employment report showed payrolls increasing by 147,000, below consensus of 170,000
- EIA Petroleum Status report showed oil inventories increasing by 14.4 million barrels from the previous week
Stocks trading actively for the day included the following:
Frontier Communications
Bank of America
Chesapeake Energy
Ford
Pfizer
General Electric
Apple
Regions Financial
In the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the following stocks led losses:
Verizon Communications -1.51
Pfizer -1.42
Caterpillar -1.37
General Electric -1.35
Visa -1.27
American Express -1.21
In the broad market, real estate and utilities led losses. Technology was also lower. S&P 500 technology stocks were down -0.64 percent on Wednesday. Stocks leading losses in technology included the following:
Frontier Communications -13.74
Western Digital -3.56
CenturyLink -3.16
Fidelity National Information Services -2.34
Level 3 Communications -2.23
Alphabet -2.12
Qualcomm -1.83
Facebook -1.8
In commodities, gold traded higher as evidenced by the SPDR Gold Trust which reported a gain of 0.91 points or 0.74 percent. The dollar was lower for the day as the U.S. Dollar Index was down -0.37 points or -0.38 percent to 97.37.
Small-Cap Stocks
In small-caps, the Russell 2000 Index closed at 1162.52 for a loss of -1.31 percent. The S&P 600 Small-Cap Index closed at 705.68 for a loss of -0.99 percent. The Dow Jones Small-Cap Growth TSM Index closed at 7035.65 for a loss of -1.34. The Dow Jones Small-Cap Value TSM Index closed at 8299.06 for a loss of -1.12.
Other Notable Indexes
Other notable index closes included the S&P 400 Mid-Cap Index at 1479.30 for a loss of -0.98 percent; the S&P 100 Index at 931.69 for a loss of -0.71 percent; the Russell 3000 Index at 1236.99 for a loss of -0.75 percent; the Russell 1000 Index at 1161.08 for a loss of -0.70 percent; and the Dow Jones U.S. Select Dividend Index at 588.44 for a aloss of -1.03 percent.
