From Briefing.com: 4:05 pm : The stock market spent the entire midweek session in a daylong retreat, which sent the S&P 500 lower by 0.8%. The benchmark index settled behind the Nasdaq Composite (-0.9%) and the Russell 2000 (-1.1%). Once again, today's trading volume was below average with just 735 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.
Stocks slipped out of the gate and continued showing modest losses throughout the morning. With little upward pressure on the market, the losses were extended in afternoon action as just about every sector slid to fresh session lows. Growth-sensitive energy (-1.0%), materials (-1.0%), and financials (-1.0%) settled at the bottom of the leaderboard with energy slumping despite an intraday gain in crude oil. The energy component settled higher by 0.2% at $54.01/bbl after being up 0.9% in early afternoon action.
Most of the remaining cyclical sectors finished with comparable losses. The technology sector (-0.9%) ended just behind the broader market while chipmakers lagged. The PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 1.9% with NVIDIA (NVDA 109.25, -8.07) diving 6.9% to erase yesterday's surge. The stock faced selling pressure throughout the day after an analyst note cautioned that the stock may have a tough time following this year's performance. Shares of NVIDIA have nearly tripled since the end of last year.
Company-specific news was scarce today, but the Wall StreetJournal reported that Kate Spade (KATE 17.86, +3.35) is exploring a sale. Shares of KATE spiked 23.1% into the neighborhood of highs from November. The news had a limited impact on retailers as the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 44.37, -0.54) lost 1.2%.
Treasuries ended at their best levels of the day after climbing into the afternoon. The 10-yr yield fell five basis points to 2.51%.
Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 263K) and November International Trade in Goods will be reported at 8:30 ET.
Russell 2000 +19.9% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.8% YTD
S&P 500 +10.1% YTD
Nasdaq Composite +8.6% YTD
DJ30 -111.36 NASDAQ -48.89 SP500 -18.96 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 764/1.21 bln/2245 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 791/734.9 mln/2166 3:45 pm :
The dollar index pulled back from today's late-morning high, which helped provide some support to commodities today
The index, however, remains modestly higher in current trade
Energy futures posted some gains today, led by natural gas
Feb WTI crude oil finished up today's session 0.2% higher at $54.01/barrel, while Feb nat gas closed 3.7% higher at $3.90/MMBtu
Precious metals showed some modest gains, while copper declined
Feb gold finished the day +0.2% at $1140.90/oz, while Mar silver ended +0.2% at $16.03/oz
Stocks fell across the board and closed near sessionlows on light volume today. The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.8% after closing at a new all-timehigh yesterday. The S&P 500 fell 0.8% to a three-week low while the Dow faredslightly better, closing 0.6% lower, now 166 points from the 20,000 milestone. Semiconductors fell 1.6%, weighed down by NVDA and QCOM.
We wrote about NVIDIA (NVDA) 'defying gravity' inthis morning's Story Stock and sure enough, gravity took hold soon after thestock gapped up to another all-time high. Citron put a $90 target on the stockafter the huge run it has seen this year --- it was trading at $90 just twoweeks ago. Citron has a good reputation. The stock fell 7%.
Korea Fair Trade Commission found certain of its business practices violate Korean competition law and intends to issue a corrective order relating to the specific practices at issue and impose an administrative fine of ~$865 mln
Amazon (AMZN) will have a 'Digital Day' on December 30 -- get up to50% off over a thousand TV shows, movies, music, apps, mobile games, eBooks andmore. Best Buy (BBY) fell on the news.
Facebook's (FB) Oculus bought eye-tracking starup The Eye Tribe
Apple (AAPL) CEO Time Cook briefly appeared onCNBC. He was visiting the NYSE on vacation and said Apple was having a greatholiday and the new air pods (wireless ear buds) were a saves.
Broker calls:
Evercore recommended AMZN, BABA, FB, GOOGL, JD, PCLN, TCEHY for next year
A boutique firm raised its Square (SQ) tgt to anew Street high $19
