@Cleo just for you on this national chocolate day, i cooked up a batch of my famous chocolate crackles (everyone remembers them as kids, dont they?)
only mine have that added special ingredient, i'm not going to tell you what it is, so i'm just going to give it a code number, i call it my number 2.
i never was one for washing my hands
Dow jones 21320 minus 158
S&P 500 2409.75 minus 22.79
DAX 12381 minus 72
FTSE 7337 minus 30
OIL 45.31 plus 18
GOLD 1224.70 plus 4.30
AUD 75.84
SPI Futures minus 20
U.S. stocks closed lower Thursday as investors continued to rotate out of battered technology names. A combination of geopolitical jitters and growing signs that global central banks are inching closer to unwinding policies that have helped to support both stocks and government bonds is also weighing on the broader market.
A round of economic data, including readings on private-sector payrolls and weekly layoffs, did little to soothe worries about the expected muted pace of the Federal Reserve’s policy plans.
The S&P 500 SPX, -0.94% dropped 22.79 points, or 0.9%, to finish at 2,409.75 with all 11 sectors ending in negative territory. Telecoms and real-estate shares led the declines.
The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -1.00% fell 61.39 points, or 1%, to close at 6,089.46.
The general shift from tech to other stocks that began in early June is still in play, according to Mike Antonelli, equity sales trader at Robert W. Baird & Co.
“The rotation out of tech is dominating stocks and is the overarching theme in the market,” he said. “People should not mistake rotation for volatility, and I am not terribly freaked out as investors are not selling everything equally.”
Kent Engelke, chief economic strategist at Capitol Securities Management Inc., said the market’s moves are likely magnified by the selling pressure in technology stocks, given how widely they are held.
“Technology has four times greater impact on the averages than oil because of technology’s massive percentage of the capitalization of the S&P,” he said. “The amount of monies required to keep the megasized technology growth issues at current levels is gargantuan.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.74% dropped 158.13 points, or 0.7%, to close at 21,320.
“There are a lot of things keeping risk appetite in check,” said Chris Beauchamp, senior market analyst at IG in London. “Geopolitical worries are beginning to bear down” on Wall Street and in Europe SXXP, -0.67% , where losses in regional benchmarks accelerated Thursday, he said.
Investors are also increasingly becoming skittish due to escalating tensions surrounding North Korea’s test launch this week of an intercontinental ballistic missile, sparking a “broader move out of equities back to bonds” as they sought assets considered havens, Beauchamp said.
President Donald Trump said Thursday in Warsaw that he’s considering “some pretty severe things” in response to North Korea’s ongoing efforts to develop nuclear weapons that can reach the U.S.
“The market is not getting too panicky just yet, but you’re into that July, August, September period where we could see a bit of a grind,” he added.
Some analysts speculated that rising bond yields are hurting investor sentiment.
“People are nervous about bond yields going up and you can see that in exaggerated moves in technology stocks and financials,” said Ian Winer, head of the equities division at Wedbush Securities.
Economic docket:Private-sector employers added a seasonally-adjusted 153,000 jobs during the month, below the 180,000 jobs that a consensus of economists had forecast. Meanwhile, initial jobless claims in the period between June 25 and July 1 increased 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 248,000.
Economists use these numbers to get a feel for the official nonfarm payrolls due on Friday, with the consensus estimate at 179,000 new jobs created in June. The Federal Reserve closely watches labor-market conditions as part of its monetary-policy assessment, and the report comes as investors continue to unpack the Fed minutes released Wednesday.
Those minutes left many uncertain as to policy makers’ strategy for reducing the Fed’s $4.5 billion in debt holdings, which has acted as support for the U.S. economy.
Separately, the trade deficit fell 2.3% to $46.5 billion in May from $47.6 billion in April, largely because of fewer imports of cell phones and other consumer goods, but the longer-run outlook for the U.S. was still grim. The Institute for Supply Management’s nonmanufacturing index rose to 57.4% in June from 56.9% in May, topping the MarketWatch-compiled economist consensus for a reading of 56.5%.
Other markets: The ICE Dollar Index DXY, -0.41% which measures the buck against a basket of six currencies, was flat. Gold GCQ7, +0.20% rose 0.2% and oil futures CLU7, +0.31% settled 0.9% higher.
Treasury yields moved higher, with the yield on the 10-year note TMUBMUSD10Y, +1.76% up 4 basis points to 2.36%.
Stock markets in Asia finished mostly weaker, with the Nikkei Stock Average NIK, -0.44% losing 0.4% and European markets also finished lower on signs that the ECB may be prepared to scale back its quantitative easing.
what we can expect
futures currently pointing to a lower opening, currently minus 20 points
