U.S. Market Indexes Lower as Election Approaches
U.S. market indexes were lower Thursday for the eighth consecutive day of losses. For the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 17930.67 for a loss of -28.97 points or -0.16 percent. The S&P 500 closed at 2088.66 for a loss of -9.28 points or -0.44 percent. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 5058.41 for a loss of -47.16 points or -0.92 percent. The VIX Volatility Index was higher at 22.15 for a gain of 2.83 points or 14.65 percent.
Wednesday’s Market Movers
Stock valuations continued to fall as Hillary Clinton lost ground in her lead over Donald Trump in the presidential election. Economic reports affecting the market included the following:
- Jobless claims increased by 7,000 for the week
- Nonfarm productivity and costs had a quarterly 3.1 percent SAAR increase
- PMI Services Index at 54.8 versus previous 52.3
- Factory orders up 0.3 percent from the previous month
- ISM Non-Manufacturing at 54.8 versus 57.1 in the previous month
Stocks trading actively for the day included the following:
Bank of America
Chesapeake Energy
Frontier Communications
Ford
Pfizer
CenturyLink
Twenty-First Century Fox
Transocean
In the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Pfizer, Intel and Apple led losses.
Pfizer -2.42
Intel -1.97
Apple -1.61
In the broad market, healthcare and technology stocks led losses. S&P 500 technology stocks were down -0.92 percent for the day. Losses in technology were led by the following:
First Solar -14.96
Frontier Communications -7.82
Facebook -5.68
CenturyLink -4.88
Level 3 Communications -3.28
Intel -1.97
In commodities, gold traded higher as evidenced by the SPDR Gold Trust which reported a gain of 0.66 points or 0.53 percent. The dollar was lower for the day as the U.S. Dollar Index was down -0.26 points or -0.27 percent to 97.12.
Small-Cap Stocks
In small-caps, the Russell 2000 Index closed at 1156.89 for a loss of -5.64 points or -0.49 percent. The S&P 600 Small-Cap Index closed at 703.64 for a loss of -2.04 points or -0.29 percent. The Dow Jones Small-Cap Growth TSM Index closed at 6979.20 for a loss of -56.45 points or -0.80 percent. The Dow Jones Small-Cap Value TSM Index closed at 8299.18 for a gain of 0.12 points or 0.01 percent.
Other Notable Indexes
Other notable index closes included the S&P 400 Mid-Cap Index at 1476.68 for a loss of -2.62 points or -0.18 percent; the S&P 100 Index at 926.63 for a loss of -5.06 points or -0.54 percent; the Russell 3000 Index at 1231.62 for a loss of -5.38 points or -0.43 percent; the Russell 1000 Index at 1156.08 for a loss of -5.00 points or -0.43 percent; the Dow Jones U.S. Select Dividend Index at 587.35 for a loss of -1.09 points or -0.19 percent.
