New York Report: Dow slips to biggest drop in three weeks
WOES in the airline and aircraft manufacture industries yesterday pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average down to its biggest single-session decline in three weeks.
The Dow shed 102.04 points, or 0.6 per cent, to 16,843.88, breaking a four-day streak of all-time closing highs. Helping weigh down the Dow was Boeing, which fell 2.3 per cent to $134 amid broad weakness in the airline sector and after a Wall Street analyst downgraded its stock.
The S&P 500 index fell 6.90 points, or 0.4 peer cent, to 1,943.89. Technology stocks held up relatively well, with the Nasdaq Composite Index ending down 6.07 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 4,331.93.
Investors were also caught on the hop by the surprising primary election defeat of Eric Cantor, the Number 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, by an upstart candidate from the Tea Party movement, seeing this as a signal to be cautious.
The biggest drag on the S&P 500 was Bank of America, which has reached an impasse in negotiating a multibillion-dollar settlement with the US Department of Justice relating to the bank’s mortgage investments, according to The New York Times. The bank’s stock dropped two per cent to $15.59.
Orexigen Therapeutics shares sank 16.3 per cent to $5.70 after the US Food and Drug Administration delayed a decision on the marketing application for its obesity drug by three months.