Healthcare firms lead stocks lower
Stocks closed lower Wednesday, led by sharp declines in healthcare companies as outrage escalates over the steep price hikes for Mylan’s Epi Pens.
Trading remained quiet overall, with many investors on vacation. It was another below-average day of trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 65.82 points, or 0.4%, to 18,481.48. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index sank 11.46 points, or 0.5%, to 2,175.44 and the Nasdaq composite slid 42.38 points, or 0.8%, to 5,217.69.
Major indexes were down slightly for most of the day, and the losses deepened as a late-day sell-off in drug makers dragged the broader market lower. Mylan dropped 5.5% to $43.15 after falling nearly 5% the day before.
Outrage over Mylan’s price increases for its Epi Pen product continues to grow. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton issued a statement Wednesday calling Mylan’s price increases “outrageous” and called for the company to reduce its prices for Epi Pens immediately.
Epi Pens are medical devices designed to deliver adrenaline to a patient suffering from a potentially fatal allergic reaction. Allergy sufferers often have to carry more than one because they always need to be close by in case of an emergency. Mylan, which bought the rights to the product in 2007, has raised the price from roughly $100 for two pens to roughly $600.
Other biotechnology and drugmaker stocks also fell as investors anticipated that pressure over drug-pricing practices could spread to other drugmakers. Vertex Pharmaceuticals fell 4.2% to $96.71 and Allergan fell 3.9% to $243.77.
Metals and mining stocks also took hefty losses following disappointing results from the European mining giant Glencore. The company reported a loss and continues to sell off billions in assets to pay down its massive debt load.
Free-port-McMo Ran slumped 7.5% to $11.08 and Newmont Mining sank 7.5% to $39.85.
Benchmark crude oil fell $1.33 to $46.77 a barrel. Brent crude, which is used to price oil internationally, fell 91 cents to $49.05 a barrel.
Heating oil fell less than 1 cent to $1.496 a gallon, wholesale gasoline rose 1 cent to $1.51 a gallon and natural gas rose 3.5 cents to $2.796 per 1,000 cubic feet.
The yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.56% from 1.55% the day before. The dollar rose to 100.49 yen from 100.22 yen, and the euro fell to $1.1261 from $1.1305.
Gold lost $16.40 to $1,329.70 an ounce, silver fell 38 cents to $18.69 an ounce and copper gave up 4 cents to close at $2.09 a pound.