Stocks fall as markets take ‘a breather’

Investors scrutinizing mixed earnings signs

Banks and health care companies helped pull stocks on Wall Street mostly lower Wednesday, as the market eased back from its latest record highs.

The S&P 500 fell 0.5 percent after shedding a modest gain as the selling picked up in the last hour of trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.7 percent. Both indexes set all-time highs the day before.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite ended flat after an early tech company rally lost steam. Treasury yields were mixed. Energy futures mostly fell.

Investors were focusing on a mixed batch of earnings from several well-known companies, including Microsoft, General Motors and Coca-cola.

“After some strong days, markets are taking a breather,” said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco. “They’re certainly digesting earnings.”

The S&P 500 slipped 23.11 points to 4,551.68. More than three-fourths of the companies in the benchmark index fell, with financial, health care and industrial stocks accounting for most of the decline. Those losses offset gains from communication services stocks and companies that rely on consumer spending.

The Dow fell 266.19 points, or 0.7 percent, to 35,490.69. Most of the blue-chip index’s stocks were in the red, led by Visa, which slumped 6.9 percent a day after reporting strong quarterly results.

The Nasdaq edged up 0.12 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 15,235.84, and the Russell 2000 index of small companies took the heaviest losses, falling 43.58 points, or 1.9 percent, to 2,252.49.

Long-term bond yields fell and weighed down banks, which rely on higher yields to charge more lucrative interest on loans. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 1.53 percent from 1.61 percent late Tuesday.

The yield on the 30-year Treasury fell below 2 percent for the first time in a month to 1.96 percent, though rates on shorter-term U.S. bonds, like the 2-year Treasury note, have been rising.

Traders bid up shares in several companies that reported solid quarterly results. Microsoft rose

4.2 percent after reporting a 24 percent surge in profits last quarter as its cloud computing business bounded ahead.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, rose 5 percent, eclipsing its previous all-time high set Sept. 1, as a continued rebound in digital ad spending bolstered surprisingly good financial results.