Wall St. Flat after Last Week’s Big Gain; Energy Weighs
U.S. stocks ended near flat on Monday, pausing after the S&P 500’s biggest weekly gain since January 2013, while energy shares fell with another decline in oil prices.
Among the day’s biggest positives, shares of Gilead Sciences (GILD.O) rose 1.7 percent to $112.59, a day ahead of its scheduled earnings release. Micron Technology (MU.O) shares jumped 4 percent to $32.30 and was the largest percentage gainer on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 after it announced a $1 billion stock repurchase.
But energy shares were by far the day’s biggest drag, with the S&P 500 energy index .SPNY falling 2 percent. U.S. crude oil CLc1 briefly traded below $80 a barrel after Goldman Sachs slashed its crude price forecasts, citing abundant supply and lackluster demand.
The S&P 500 ended the day down slightly after closing out its best week since early January 2013, a sharp recovery from the market’s recent selloff. The index is now up 5.3 percent from its Oct. 15 low.
“After almost a 10 percent correction on the S&P, the bulls showed up and sent the prices right back up. Now… we’re on track for closing in the upper half of the range for the month, which is a bullish sign,” said Adam Sarhan, chief executive of Sarhan Capital in New York.
Accommodative central bank policies globally should keep “an underlying bid for stocks,” he said.
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI rose 12.53 points, or 0.07 percent, to 16,817.94, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 2.95 points, or 0.15 percent, to 1,961.63 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 2.22 points, or 0.05 percent, to 4,485.93.
The majority of companies are beating earnings expectations. With results in from 213 of the S&P 500 companies, 71.4 percent beat analysts’ forecasts, which would be highest percentage since the third quarter of 2011, Thomson Reuters data showed.
U.S.-traded shares of Brazilian companies tumbled after President Dilma Rousseff won reelection, defeating market favorite Aecio Neves by a slim margin.
Petrobras ADRs (PBR.N) slumped 13.7 percent to $11.16 and Vale (VALE.N) lost 5.2 percent to $10.58. A Brazilian exchange-traded fund (EWZ.P) dropped 5.4 percent.
After the bell, shares of Twitter (TWTR.N) dropped 9.6 percent to $43.88 after it reported quarterly revenue that surpassed expectations but forecast fourth-quarter sales that may miss targets.
On the S&P 500, the largest decliner was Nabors Industries (NBR.N), down 6.7 percent to $17.48. On the Nasdaq, the largest decliner was Tesla Motors (TSLA.O), down 5.8 percent at $221.67.
Declining NYSE issues outnumbered advancers 1,737 to 1,308, for a 1.33-to-1 ratio on the downside; on the Nasdaq, 1,424 issues fell and 1,235 advanced for a 1.15-to-1 ratio.
The benchmark S&P 500 index posted 53 new 52-week highs and one new low; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 45 new highs and 62 new lows.
About 6.1 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, below the 8 billion average this month, according to data from BATS Global Markets.
Source: Reuters
