New York Report: Wall St hit by profit taking
US STOCKS fell yesterday, with selling picking up late in the session, as investors cashed in some of the recent market gains, but the S&P 500 finished less than one per cent away from a record high set last week.
Indexes had swung between gains and losses in the first half of the session, as the lack of major corporate earnings or market-affecting data kept trading directionless, but they closed near the day’s lows.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 67.43 points or 0.41 per cent, to 16,351.25, the S&P 500 lost 9.54 points or 0.51 per cent, to 1,867.63 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 27.26 points or 0.63 per cent, to 4,307.188.
“We just hit highs on Friday so people have a lot of profits here. They’re just taking some money off the table,” Frank Lesh from FuturePath Trading said.
About 6.9bn shares traded in US exchanges yesterday.