Only health care and energy sectors avoided losses
U.S. stocks closed slightly lower on Tuesday, 07 April 2015 as an effort to build on Monday's strong gains ran out of steam. Equity indices halted their two-day win streak on Tuesday with the S&P 500 shedding 0.2%. The benchmark index surrendered its modest intraday gain during the final hour.
Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average inched lower by 5.43 points, or less than 0.1%, to end at 17,875.42, after the blue-chip gauge briefly showed a gain of more than 100 points. The Nasdaq Composite fell by 7.08 points, or 0.1%, to finish at 4,910.23. The S&P 500 dipped by 4.29 points, or 0.2%, to close at 2,076.33.
Only health care and energy sectors avoided losses among the index's 10 sectors.
No top-tier economic reports came out, but mergers-and-acquisitions news helped to limit losses, with FedEx Corp. Famong the S&P 500's biggest advancers after the shipping giant said it would buy Dutch logistics company TNT Express. Shares of FedEx Corp. closed 2.7% higher after the company announced a $4.8 billion deal to buy TNT Express.
Economic data at Wall Street was limited to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey and Consumer Credit. The February Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings increased to 5.133 million from a revised rate of 4.965 million (from 4.998 million). The Consumer Credit report for February was showed an increase of $15.50 billion while the consensus expected a reading of $12.50 billion. The prior month's credit growth was revised to $10.80 billion from $11.60 billion.
The U.S. dollar index posted big gains on Tuesday, on a rebound from recent selling pressure.
Bullion prices ended the U.S. day session moderately lower on Tuesday, 07 April 2015 on a downside correction following good gains that had pushed gold prices to a six-week high on Monday. A sharply higher U.S. dollar index on this day also worked against the precious metals markets.
Gold for June deliver on Comex slid $8.00, or 0.7%, to $1,210.60 an ounce, while May silver lost 27 cents, or 1.6%, to $16.84 an ounce.
Crude oil benchmark soared for a second straight session on Tuesday, 07 April 2015 to close at its highest level of 2015 a day ahead of weekly data that is expected to show a decline in domestic crude output.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in May rose $1.84, or 3.5%, to close at $53.98. Over the past two sessions, May crude has gained nearly 10%.
Investors expect crude-oil data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday to show a second consecutive weekly decline in oil production. Less influential inventories data from the American Petroleum Institute is expected later on Wednesday.
Today's participation was well below average with fewer than 650 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.
Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be reported at 7:00 ET while the FOMC minutes from the latest policy meeting will be released at 14:00 ET.
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