Stocks give up an early gain and end lower on Wall Street
Stocks closed broadly lower after a day of choppy trading on Wall Street on Monday as investors prepare for a busy week of corporate earnings and inflation updates.
The major indexes made early gains but slowly fizzled as the day progressed. The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 30.15 points, or 0.7%, to 4,361.19. The benchmark index gained as much as 0.6% in the early going.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 250.19 points, or 0.7%, to 34,496.06 and the Nasdaq composite shed 93.34 points, or 0.6%, and closed at 14,486.20.
Technology and communications stocks had some of the biggest losses. Facebook fell 1.4% and Intuit fell 1.1%.
In a sign that competition among streaming entertainment providers will stay heated in the years ahead, Apple announced Friday that it will roughly double its office presence in the Culver City area where Apple TV+ is based.
Most sectors ended in the red. Real estate stocks, which are seen as relatively less risky, were among the few bright spots within the S&P 500.
Bond trading was closed for the Columbus Day holiday. The price of U.S. crude oil rose 1.5% to more than $80 a barrel.
Investors are looking ahead to the beginning of company earnings reports this week. Analysts have said that the latest round of corporate results could help give the market more direction after several choppy weeks. Stocks have been swaying between gains and losses as investors try to better gauge the direction of the economic recovery through the rest of the year.
Banks will be among the first big companies to report their latest financial results and give investors more insight into how companies are faring amid concerns over the lingering virus pandemic and rising inflation.
JPMorgan Chase delivers its results Wednesday. Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup will report results Thursday.
Delta Air Lines will report its latest results Wednesday. The airline industry is still struggling to recover from the pandemic shutdowns that began 18 months ago. Investors will be closely monitoring the industry’s results to see how much of an effect the summer surge of COVID-19 cases had on the industry.
Wall Street faced a quiet day of corporate news ahead of earnings. Southwest Airlines fell 4.2% after dealing with hundreds of flight cancellations over the weekend. Toymaker Hasbro fell 1.6% after announcing that Chief Executive Brian D. Goldner is taking a medical leave of absence.
Investors are also looking ahead to economic data this week that could shed more light on what’s going on with inflation. The Labor Department will release its consumer price index Wednesday and its producer price index Thursday. The reports detail pressure from inflation on consumers and businesses.
Companies from a wide range of industries have warned investors that supply chain problems and higher prices for raw materials could crimp their financial results for the rest of the year. Wall Street is closely monitoring whether those higher costs and resulting higher prices for goods will hurt consumer spending, which is a key driver of economic growth.
Inflation will probably remain the dominant theme swirling over markets through 2021 and into 2022, said Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors. The upcoming consumer price index data Wednesday are probably going to be hotter than Wall Street expects, he said.
“Right when you’re going into earnings you have this CPI bomb that could go off,” he said. “We have a demand problem and a supply problem; there are too many dollars chasing too few goods.”
