China forecast, bank losses cool off stocks
Major indexes drop as some analysts become cautious
NEW YORK — U.S. stocks finished lower Monday for the second time in the last three trading days. Banks gave back some of their recent gains after a jump in interest rates last week sent them sharply higher.
Mining and chemical companies declined after China cut its economic growth forecast, and airlines slumped after Delta said its business isn’t improving as fast as it hoped. There were few winners to be found on Wall Street as more than two-thirds of the stocks on the New York Stock Exchange fell. That included consistent losses for banks, investment firms and insurance companies.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 7.81 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,375.31. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 51.37 points, or 0.2 percent, to 20,954.34. The Nasdaq composite lost 21.58 points, or 0.4 percent, to 5,849.17. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks sank 9.88 points, or 0.7 percent, to 1,384.25.
All four indexes reached all-time highs last week, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have risen for six weeks in a row. That’s on top of a big surge in November and December. Those rapid gains the last few months have prompted some analysts to turn cautious.
“We think there’s a reasonable chance at the end of the year we’ll be a little bit lower than we are right now,” said Scott Wren, senior global equity strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
Over the weekend Premier Li Keqiang, China’s top economic official, trimmed the country’s growth target to 6.5 percent. The Chinese economy is the second-largest in the world, and the prospect of slower growth there hurt mining, packaging and chemical companies and sent the price of copper lower. Copper lost 4 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $2.65 a pound.
But investors weren’t nearly as alarmed about the latest signs of slowing growth in China as they were in the past. Stocks plunged in early 2016 as investors worried the Chinese economy might weaken in a hurry and drag the global economy down with it. Wren said Wall Street now thinks growth in China will slow down gradually.
“The market’s pretty comfortable with this controlled slowdown,” he said. “A lot of that sell-off was due to the fear that Chinese growth was basically going to collapse.”
Delta Air Lines gave a disappointing revenue projection for the second quarter and its stock lost $1.28, or 2.6 percent, to $48.85. United and American Airlines each fell 3 percent.
Poultry companies slumped after 73,500 chickens were killed at a Tennessee farm after a bird flu outbreak was discovered there. The affected farm is a supplier to Tyson Foods, and Tyson said it doesn’t expect its business to suffer.
Tyson stock gave up $1.61, or 2.5 percent, to $61.99. Sanderson Farms gave up $1.86, or 2 percent, to $92.53.
Bond prices continued to slip. The yield on the 10year Treasury note rose to 2.49 percent from 2.48 percent.