Video game shops, restaurants and retailers led the stock market lower Wednesday.
Without any good news to drive the market up, investors grappled with the question hanging over financial markets: When will the Federal Reserve and other central banks pull back their economic stimulus programs?
Markets have turned turbulent as traders start preparing for a time when the Fed and central banks in Europe and Japan are not pumping as much money into the financial system.
“There’s nothing concrete out there to turn us around today,” said Russell Croft, portfolio manager at the Croft-Leominster Value Fund in Baltimore. “So naturally enough, people are back to thinking about the Fed.”
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 126.79 points, or 0.8 percent, to close at 14,995.23. The Dow had its first three-day stretch of losses this year and is down 1.7 percent for the week.
A rout in global markets helped pull the Dow down 116 points on Tuesday. The selling started after the Bank of Japan decided not to make any new attempt to spur growth in its nation’s economy, which is the world’s third largest.
In other trading on Wednesday, the Standard Poor’s 500-stock index fell 13.61 points, or 0.8 percent, to 1,612.52. All 10 industry groups in the index dropped, led by consumer discretionary and utility companies. The Nasdaq composite fell 36.52 points, or 1 percent, to 3,400.43. Two of the top-performing stocks in the S. P. 500 this year, Netflix and Best Buy, led consumer discretionary companies down. Netflix lost $6.82, or 3 percent, to $207.64. Best Buy dropped $1.01, or 4 percent, to $26.88. GameStop fell $1.13, or 3 percent, to $36.59.
The S. P. 500, the stock-market benchmark for most investment funds, has lost 3.4 percent since reaching a record high on May 21. The next day, the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said the central bank could decide to scale down its bond-buying program in the coming months if the economy looked strong enough.
Many on Wall Street think the Fed could signal that it is ready to start cutting back on its $85 billion in bond purchases at the end of its two-day meeting on Wednesday. That’s a reason bond traders have been selling Treasury notes, sending the 10-year yield from a low of 1.63 percent last month to as high as 2.29 percent this week. On Wednesday, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note edged up to 2.23 percent from 2.19 percent Tuesday, as the note fell 10/32, to 95 25/32.
Despite the losses, there were a few bright spots. Cooper Tire and Rubber jumped 41 percent after Apollo Tyres of India announced plans to buy the tire maker for $2.5 billion.
In commodities trading, crude oil rose 50 cents, to $96.10 a barrel, in New York. Gold rose $15, to $1,392 an ounce.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/business/daily-stock-market-activity.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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