Finland Times

 

 

U.S. stocks retreated Wednesday, as investors looked for excuses to sell stocks after the S&P 500 posted its best day of the year in the previous session.

 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 153.49 points, or 0.92 percent, to 16,461.32. The S&P 500 fell 14.17 points, or 0.73 percent, to 1,927.11. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 36.63 points, or 0.83 percent, to 4,382.85.

 

After witnessing the biggest one-day rally of the year for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq boosted by encouraging quarterly earnings from Apple Inc. and robust U.S. home sales the prior day, the three benchmark indices opened narrowly mixed Wednesday and hovered around flatline in the morning session.

 

However, the market lost momentum in the afternoon session following the news that a soldier was fatally shot near Canadian Parliament by a gunman who was later killed by the police, which triggered risk aversion among cautious investors.

 

The CBOE Volatility Index, often referred to as Wall Street's fear gauge, jumped 11.13 percent to end at 17.87.

 

On the economic front, the U.S. Consumer Price Index increased 0.1 percent in September on a seasonally adjusted basis, following a decline of 0.2 percent in August, said the Labor Department.

 

An absence of price pressures will allow the Federal Reserve to "remain very patient on interest rate policy, even as QE3 (the third round of quantitative easing) buying likely ends next week," said economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in a research note released Wednesday.

 

On corporate earnings, Boeing Co. said early Wednesday that its net earnings for the third quarter jumped 18 percent year on year to 1.36 billion U.S. dollars, with core earnings per share of 2.14 dollars that beat analysts' expectations of 1.97 dollars a share.

 

The aircraft manufacturer's quarterly revenue grew 7 percent from last year to 23.78 billion dollars, also above expectations.

 

Shortly after the closing bell, U.S. wireless carrier AT&T reported disappointing earnings results, at 0.63 dollar per share for the third quarter of 2014, missing expectations by 1 cent, while revenue was 32.96 billion dollars, also shy of market estimates of 33.25 billion dollars.

 

According to the latest data from Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, some 27 percent of the S&P 500 companies have reported third-quarter results, among which nearly 69 percent have reported earnings above analysts' expectations and approximately 62 percent have reported revenues above forecast.

 

In other markets, the dollar climbed against other currencies Wednesday as U.S. consumer price index increased in September. Meanwhile, prospects of additional easing policies from the European Central Bank continued to weigh on the euro.

 

In late New York trading, the euro dropped to 1.2646 dollars from 1.2725 dollars of the previous session. The greenback bought 107.21 Japanese yen, higher than 106.85 yen of the previous session.

 

Crude prices went down as a report showed U.S. crude supplies of last week increased more than expected.

 

Light, sweet crude for December moved down 1.97 dollars to settle at 80.52 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest since June 2012, while Brent crude for December delivery fell 1.51 dollars to close at 84.71 dollars a barrel.

 

Gold futures on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange went down amid stronger dollar and upbeat inflationary report.

 

The most active gold contract for December delivery shed 6.2 dollars, or 0.5 percent, to settle at 1,245.5 dollars per ounce.