NEW YORK, April 14 ― The Dow and S&P 500 fell yesterday as US companies prepared to kick off a quarterly earnings season expected to be rough due to the coronavirus pandemic, while Amazon.com gains helped the Nasdaq end higher.
Stocks pared losses late in the day, with the Nasdaq registering its first three-day streak of gains since February 12. Amazon.com gave the index its biggest boost, gaining 6.2 per cent as the retail giant said it would hire 75,000 more people amid a surge in demand for online orders.
The S&P banking subsector fell 4.1 per cent, with JPMorgan Chase & Co and Wells Fargo & Co set to report today and analysts expecting a bleak outlook for the year.
Volume was lighter than usual with European and other markets still closed following Easter Sunday, but investors are also bracing for earnings news from companies, said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 328.6 points, or 1.39 per cent, to 23,390.77, the S&P 500 lost 28.19 points, or 1.01 per cent, to 2,761.63 and the Nasdaq Composite added 38.85 points, or 0.48 per cent, to 8,192.43.
Volume on US exchanges was 10.93 billion shares, compared with the 14.80 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.
“What you're seeing at the end of the day is investors who are sitting with too much cash are buying on the dips,” said Dennis Dick, head of market structure and proprietary trader at Bright Trading in Las Vegas. “I think that trend continues unless the news flow gets predominantly worse.”
Some strategists said comments by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday helped to ease some investor concerns. Cuomo said he believed “the worst is over” as hospitalizations appeared to be reaching a plateau in the worst-hit US state, adding that he would announce a coordinated plan on reopening businesses.
Aggressive US monetary and fiscal stimulus and early signs of a potential peaking in US coronavirus cases have helped stocks recover recently from their dramatic sell-off tied to the pandemic.
Carnival Corp, Royal Caribbean Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings tumbled as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extended its “no sail order” for all cruise ships.
Ford Motor Co shed 3.9 per cent after the carmaker projected a quarterly adjusted loss before interest and taxes to be about US$600 million (RM2.59 billion), compared with a profit of US$2.4 billion a year earlier.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 2.57-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.61-to-1 ratio favoured decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 3 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 15 new highs and 13 new lows. ― Reuters
