FINANCIAL MARKETS
NEW YORK—U.S. stock indexes held steady Thursday after the price of oil halted its slide, at least for now.
Energy stocks fell again, but not by nearly as much as earlier in the week, after crude rose for the first time in four days. Big gains for health care stocks also helped to offset losses for financial companies and other areas of the market, leaving indexes close to flat. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index edged down by 1.11 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 2,434.50. The Dow Jones industrial average dipped 12.74, or 0.1 percent, to 21,397.29, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 2.73 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 6,236.69. Markets this week have been dominated by oil’s tumbling price and worries about how much it will affect the broader market. Benchmark U.S. crude rose 21 cents to settle at $42.74 per barrel, and Brent crude, the international standard, added 40 cents to $45.22 per barrel. It may not sound like much, but it’s a big shift in momentum from earlier in the week, when oil dropped to its lowest level since August on expectations that supplies will exceed demand. Energy stocks in the S&P 500 dipped by 0.1 percent, a much milder drop than the prior two days, when they fell at least 1.2 percent. Helping to support indexes were health care stocks, which have been shooting higher this week even as the rest of the market struggled. Health care stocks in the S&P 500 jumped 1.1 percent, by far the biggest gain among the 11 sectors that make up the index, after the Senate unveiled its proposal to revamp how Americans get medical care. The sector is up 3.7 percent for the week when the overall index is up just 0.1 percent.
Envision Healthcare, which provides physician and ambulance services, jumped $2.06, or 3.5 percent, to $60.30. HCA Healthcare, which owns hospitals around the country, rose $2.09, or 2.5 percent, to $86.14, and biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences added $2.98, or 4.4 percent, to $70.48. Expectations used to be high that big changes coming out of Washington, such as lower tax rates, would help businesses make bigger profits and markets to rise higher. That’s much less the case today. The 10-year Treasury yield held steady at 2.15 percent, while the two-year yield fell to 1.34 percent from 1.35 percent late Wednesday, and the 30-year yield dipped to 2.72 percent from 2.73 percent.
Natural gas was close to flat at $2.89 per 1,000 cubic feet, heating oil rose 1 cent to $1.37 per gallon and wholesale gasoline added 2 cents to $1.43 per gallon.