Stocks end lower as Wall Street pauses after a four-day rally

Banks and technology companies led a broad slide for stocks on Wall Street on Tuesday, snapping the market’s four-day winning streak.

The S&P 500 lost 0.6%, giving back some of its gains from a day earlier. The pullback came as many forces are pushing and pulling on markets simultaneously. Coronavirus counts are rising at a worrying rate in many countries, a trend that’s increasing the urgency behind efforts to develop treatments.

On Tuesday, independent monitors paused enrollment in a study testing the COVID-19 antiviral drug remdesivir plus an experimental antibody therapy being developed by Eli Lilly. The company said the study was paused “out of an abundance of caution.” The news followed a disclosure late Monday by Johnson & Johnson, which said it had to temporarily pause a late-stage study of a potential COVID-19 vaccine

“due to an unexplained illness in a study participant.”

Meanwhile, uncertainty about the prospects for more stimulus for the economy from Washington continues to hang over markets.

“Absent of getting any kind of fiscal stimulus, we’re already seeing a leveling off in economic growth and some weakening under the surface, ” Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. “There’s concern that without that additional fiscal stimulus the economy could run into a little bit of trouble here.”

The S&P 500 fell 22.29 points (0.6%) to 3,511.93. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 157.71 (0.6%) to 28,679.81. The Nasdaq composite gave up an early gain, slipping

12.36 (0.1%) to 11,863.90. The Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks slid 12.21 (0.7%) to 1,636.85.