In this March 23, 2021 file photo, pedestrians walk past the New York Stock Exchange in New York's Financial District. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
By Damian J. Troise and Alex Veiga
Technology and energy companies led stocks lower on Wall Street Monday, easing the market back from its recent all-time highs.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.1%, erasing an early gain. Technology companies accounted for a big share of the decline. Industrial and consumer-centric stocks also fell. Those losses outweighed gains in health care companies, banks and elsewhere in the market.
Energy companies slumped the most among S&P 500 stocks as the price of benchmark U.S. crude oil fell 2.6% to its lowest levels since May. The move lower follows a decline of 7.7% last week. Occidental Petroleum shed 3%.
Every major index was coming off weekly gains last week, which ended with record highs for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
The modest pullback is another example of the volatility the market has seen amid uncertainty over the impact COVID-19 variants will have on the economy and the Federal Reserve’s next monetary policy moves, said Sylvia Jablonski, chief investment officer at Defiance ETFs.
“People who got in and saw some of the stocks that they hold at all-time highs on Friday, perhaps they’re selling a little bit off today and might be opportunistically trading some of this volatility,” she said.
The S&P 500 fell 4.17 points to 4,432.35. The Dow dropped 106.66 points, or 0.3%, to 35,101.85. The Nasdaq added 24.42 points, or 0.2%, to 14,860.18.
Smaller companies fell more than the rest of the market. The Russell 2000 index lost 12.95 points, or 0.6%, to 2,234.81.
Bond yields moved higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.32% from 1.28% late Friday. Bond yields tend to move with expectations for the economy and for inflation.
The latest round of corporate earnings is winding down, and nearly 90% of companies in the S&P 500 have reported their latest results. The reports have been mostly solid. Tyson Foods jumped 8.7% for one of the biggest gains in the S&P 500 Monday after handily beating Wall Street's profit forecasts.
Investors are also closely watching the world's reaction to the latest surge of the coronavirus. Some governments have reimposed limits on business and travel. China canceled flights as it tries to stop a rash of outbreaks. Australia’s two most populous states have told people to stay home except to go to work or for a handful of other reasons.
Analysts expect the U.S. and global economies to continue growing, but have cautioned that the resurgent virus could slow down the pace.
“That's one part of the story and that could be holding back" the stock market, said David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Funds. “We don't really have a handle on how bad the delta variant might get.”
Investors have been taking in a steady stream of encouraging economic reports. The latest from the Labor Department shows that U.S. employers posted a record 10.1 million job openings in June. That follows Friday's report that the economy generated 943,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 5.4% from 5.9% in June.
The solid jobs figures also raise some concerns about wage inflation and the pace of economic growth.
“We’re burning our way back to full employment fast," Kelly said. “Once we get there the economy is going to slow down.”
The latest figures also raise concerns about inflation fueled by the improving job market, as employers are potentially forced to raise wages to fill jobs.
Investors will get another piece of data on inflation when the Labor Department releases its consumer price index for July on Wednesday. Wall Street is still trying to gauge how much inflation might rise as the economy recovers and whether that will push the Federal Reserve to trim back its support for the economy sooner than expected.
Major indexes Europe edged lower while indexes in Asia ended mixed.
The year 2021 saw numerous natural disasters around the world, including extreme heat and wildfires, rare deep freezes, and historic flooding. This year's United Nations COP26 conference was key for getting world leaders on board with emissions reductions and other climate-focused policies as the UN Secretary-General said the agency's report on global warming is a 'code red for humanity.' In the U.S., President Joe Biden has focused most of his domestic agenda on slashing emissions and building climate-focused infrastructure. Guests from The Economist, UNC-Chapel Hill, Global Rescue, and more join Cheddar Climate's year-end special to discuss how the climate changed in 2021, and what to expect in 2022.
It's no secret tech giant Amazon has a mission of becoming a major player in sports media, and the company is poised to make progress on that goal in 2022. Amazon Prime Video will be the exclusive home to Thursday Night Football for the 2022-23 NFL season. In December, the New York Post reported that Amazon is in the beginning stages of developing studio sports programs, and hopes to soon have a full daily lineup of sports shows. Front Office Sports senior reporter A.J. Perez joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Digital mental health company Little Otter recently announced it closed a $22 million Series A round. Little Otter was founded in 2020 by a mother-daughter team, which based the company on the idea that a child's mental health can only be addressed by treating the whole family through technology available to everyone. Little Otter CEO and co-founder Rebecca Egger and her mother, Little Otter Chief Medical and Scientific Officer and co-founder Dr. Helen Egger joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Stocks closed lower Thursday with the tech-heavy Nasdaq in particular under pressure as investors dump tech stocks amid interest rate hike fears. This is the third session in a row that the Nasdaq has slipped. Meanwhile, rate-sensitive stocks gained one day after the Federal Reserve announced its more hawkish policy including three rate hikes this year. Kristina Hooper, Chief Global Market Strategist at Invesco, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss today's close, this week's Fed minutes and the central bank's new hawkish policy, and more.
Jared Watkin, senior vice president, diabetes care, at Abbott Laboratories, joined Michelle Castillo from the CES 2022 floor to discuss the future of health tech, including Abbott's consumer-facing biowearable called Lingo. The accessory is supposed to send real-time biomarker information like glucose or ketone levels to the Lingo app for the wearer to review. "The idea is that it's a window into your body," Watkin said. "It gives you insight into what's going on in your body and the certain circumstances that you otherwise wouldn't be able to have."
Aaron Jefferson, VP of product at Luminar, joined Cheddar to discuss partnering with automaker Volvo to bring its LIDAR (light detection and ranging) tech into autonomous cars capable of safely driving on the highway. While companies like Tesla have come under fire due to safety issues with its self-driving technology, Jefferson noted how his company's tech differs. "Our LIDAR, its iris sensor that's really set for production, is able to sense, understand, and give the vehicle confidence to react accordingly such that you don't have these same types of issues," he said. The Ride Pilot technology in Volvo vehicles will be rolled out in California following safety testing.
The fintech app backed by billionaire Mark Cuban called Dave made its public debut on the Nasdaq Thursday via a SPAC merger. CEO and co-founder Jason Wilk spoke to Cheddar's Kristen Scholer about the IPO and how his company's services distinguish it from traditional banks. "Customers come to us because they're tired of paying $20 billion of overdraft fees, and they come to Dave, they download our app, and within minutes they can get access to $250 of no interest credit, which we give them through our own proprietary machine learning model," he told Cheddar.
