Dow weathers storms — so far

Trading in technology and energy companies skidded on Saturday while banks and insurers recovered some of their recent losses, leaving major US indexes little changed on the day and moderately lower for the week.

Credit monitoring company Equifax plunged after it disclosed a data breach that affects 143 million Americans.

Technology companies including Apple, Facebook, Intel and chipmakers weakened.

Hurricane Irma devastated islands in the Caribbean.

The enormous storm killed at least 21 people, a total that was expected to rise as rescuers continue to search.

Experts think the storms will slow down US economic growth in the third quarter. While that’s likely to be temporary, David Chalupnik, head of equities at Nuveen Asset Management, said the effect on the US stockmarket could linger because it will be hard for investors to tell how much of any individual company’s problems are caused by the weather.

“The next couple of months are going to be pretty cloudy,” Chalupnik said.

Insurance companies, cruise lines, and oil refiners based in the Gulf Coast or Southeast could take losses and bad debt at credit card companies would increase, and since the storm would push the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates lower for a bit longer, that would hurt banks by keeping interest rates low on loans, he said.

The S&P 500 index lost 3.67 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 2461.43. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 13.01 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 21,797.79. The Nasdaq composite dropped 37.68 points, or 0.6 per cent, to 6360.19.

More stocks fell than rose on the New York Stock Exchange.

Equifax, which hit all-time highs last month, took its biggest one-day loss since 1999 after it said a cyber intrusion exposed Social Security numbers and other information from 143 million Americans between mid-May and late July. Equifax tumbled 13.7 per cent to US$123.23.