FINANCIAL MARKETS
A slide led by Target and other big retailers pulled U.S. stock indexes lower Tuesday, snapping a 12-day winning streak for the Dow Jones industrial average.
Industrial stocks and phone companies were also among the big decliners. Energy companies fell as crude oil prices edged lower. Utilities stocks eked out a gain.
Investors were focused on an evening speech by President Donald Trump to Congress in hopes of gleaning more details on the timing of tax cuts and other policies.
The Dow fell 25.20 points, or 0.1 percent, to 20,812.24. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index slid 6.11 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,363.64. The Nasdaq composite index lost 36.46 points, or 0.6 percent, to 5,825.44.
Small-company stocks fell more than the rest of the market. The Russell 2000 index slumped 21.29 points, or 1.5 percent, to 1,386.68.
Bond prices fell. The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 2.39 percent from 2.37 percent late Monday.
Trump was scheduled to deliver his first speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday evening. On Monday the president told a group of governors that his budget would propose increasing defense spending by $54 billion while cutting domestic programs and foreign aid by the same amount.
Since the election in November, expectations of tax reform, deregulation and ramped up spending on defense and infrastructure projects has pushed the stock market higher. Investors are looking for more clarity on business-friendly policies, but also on trade, immigration and other Trump administration policy initiatives that have made some investors nervous.
Traders weren’t entirely focused on Washington on Tuesday. They continued to size up the latest company earnings and outlooks.
Target plunged 12.2 percent after the retail chain’s latest quarterly profit fell short of Wall Street’s forecasts. The company also issued a weak outlook. The stock was lost $8.14 to $58.77.
Investors also weighed new data on the economy. The Commerce Department said that the U.S. economy grew at a 1.9 percent rate in the last three months of 2016, unchanged from an initial estimate. The increase in the gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic health, represented a significant slowdown from 3.5 percent growth recorded in the third quarter.
Benchmark U.S. crude slipped 4 cents, or 0.1 percent, to close at $54.01 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, which is used to price international oils, fell 34 cents, or 0.6 percent, to close at $55.59 a barrel in London.
In other energy trading, wholesale gasoline shed 2 cents to $1.51 a gallon, while heating oil slid 2 cents to $1.62 a gallon. Natural gas futures rose 8 cents, or 3 percent, at $2.77 per 1,000 cubic feet.