S&P 500 flirts with record-high close for 2nd day

NEW YORK — Another afternoon fade for stocks left Wall Street just shy of a record on Thursday, after the S&P 500 briefly crossed above its all-time closing high for the second-straight day.

The S&P 500 dipped 6.92 points, or 0.2%, to 3,373.43. At one point during the day, it climbed above 3,386.15. That’s the record closing level it set in February, before investors appreciated how much devastation the coronavirus pandemic would cause for the global economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 80.12, or 0.3%, to 27,896.72. The Nasdaq composite climbed 30.26, or 0.27%, to 11,042.50.

It’s just the second loss for the S&P 500 in the past 10 days.

The index began stumbling in the early afternoon, as Treasury yields were accelerating after an auction of 30-year bonds by the U.S. government. Higher yields mean prices for bonds were falling.

“We saw a sell-off in bonds, and that led to a little bit of weakness in stocks,” said J.J. Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade. “It’s not a terrible day by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s also a summer day,” which is traditionally slow for markets.

Yields had already perked up before the auction, after a report showing that 963,000 U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits last week. It’s the first time the tally has dropped below 1 million since March, before widespread business lockdowns caused a tsunami of layoffs.

Economists said the drop in jobless claims, which was better than the market was expecting, is an encouraging step. But they also cautioned that it could be more of an outlier than a trend, and more data reports are needed to confirm it.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 0.71%. It was at 0.57% just on Monday.

Wall Street has erased almost all of the nearly 34% drop the S&P 500 suffered from late February into March, even though the economy is still hobbled despite some recent improvements.

Efforts to support the economy by the Federal Reserve and U.S. government helped trigger the rally, and investors are now waiting for Congress and the White House to deliver another round of aid after unemployment benefits and other measures in the last tranche expired.

Democrats and Republicans are still far apart, but hope remains on Wall Street that they’ll reach a deal on stimulus that investors say is crucially needed.

“The news out of D.C. has really been shrugged off by the market,” said Jason Draho, head of asset allocation for the Americas at UBS Global Wealth Management.

He said investors have also gained more confidence about a broader economic recovery as data reports continue to show steady improvements.

“There’s still a lot of weakness, but various parts of the data are showing improvement,” he said. “There’s a moderation, but not a reversal.”

Most stocks in the S&P 500 and across Wall Street were weaker on Thursday. Energy producers had some of the sharpest losses, but resilience for Apple and several other big tech stocks helped to keep the losses in check.

Benchmark U.S. crude fell 43 cents to settle at $42.24 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 47 cents to $44.96 a barrel.

Gold for delivery in December rose $21.40 to settle at $1,970.40 per ounce. Information for this article was contributed by Yuri Kageyama of The Associated Press.