The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Stocks jump late to regain lost ground
Banks, retailers, health care and energy companies climbed as U.S. stocks regained much of what they lost a day earlier.
NEW YORK » Banks, retailers, health care and energy companies climbed Tuesday as U.S. stocks regained much of what they lost in a steep drop a day earlier. Several big technology companies including Apple also recovered.
Banks rose as interest rates turned higher, and automakers Ford and General Motors also jumped after saying their sales rose in March after a rough start to the year. Retailers like Foot Locker and consumer-focused companies including Netflix also climbed.
The market got off to a shaky start, wobbled for much of the day, then surged in the last hour of trading. The S&P 500 index rose 32.57 points, or 1.3 percent, to 2,614.45. It dropped 2.2 percent a day earlier.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 389.17 points, or 1.6 percent,
to 24,033.36. The Nasdaq composite climbed 71.16 points, or 1 percent, to 6,941.28. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company
stocks added 19.62 points, or 1.3 percent, to 1,512.15.
Craig Holke, investment strategy analyst for the Wells Fargo Investment Institute, said the market will continue to bounce around as investors worry about changes in trade that could slow down the global economy and company profits. He noted that the U.S. hasn’t entered a full-blown trade war since 1930, and trade relationships were much different back then.
“There was a lot less interconnectedness,” he said. “Every country was actually more insulated, produced more of their own goods at that time. It’s really hard to get around that nowadays.”
Among individual stocks, CBS added 4.2 percent to $52.86 on reports it plans to make an offer to buy corporate sibling Viacom. The offer is reported to be for less than Viacom’s current market value, and Viacom stock fell 3.7 percent to $29.42.
Music streaming company Spotify made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday. Instead of raising money through an initial public offering underwritten by an investment bank, Spotify Technologies took a more unusual route called a direct listing that lets investors sell the stock directly. It started trading at $165.90 a share, well above the previous high share price of $132.50 it reached in private deals. The stock wound up closing down 10.2 percent at $149.01.
It’s been a rocky month for stocks as investors worried about changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement and tensions between the U.S. and China, the world’s biggest economies. Stocks plunged one day ago after China placed tariffs on a small number of exports, and investors fear that its response to a broader package of trade sanctions will be harsher. But Holke, of Wells Fargo, said it’s likely the countries will find ways to resolve their differences on issues including complaints that Beijing steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology.