All major US indices dropped on Wednesday, with underperformance being seen in the Nasdaq 100.
Further poor hard data for the month of February may have weighed on market sentiment.
US equity markets traded on the back foot for the majority of Wednesday’s session, with all three of the major bourses erasing premarket gains to close in the red. The Nasdaq 100 was the worst-performing of the bunch, dropping 1.7% amid underperformance in Big Tech names including Apple (-1.5%), Facebook (-2.4%) and Amazon (-1.2%), with Tesla also dropping 4.3%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 closed 0.5% and slipped back below the 3900 level, coming within a whisker of last Friday’s 3887 low. The Dow did better but still finished the session 0.1% lower, while small-caps were hit hard, with the Russell 2K down 2.0%. The CBOE Volatility Index rose 0.68 to close just under 21.00.
There was some indication of a return of the economic “reopening” trade, where the S&P 500 value index (flat) outperformed the S&P 500 growth index (-1.1%). In terms of GICS sector performance, the S&P 500 industrial, financial and energy sectors all gained, the latter boosted by an aggressive recovery in crude oil prices (WTI rose over 5.0% to rally all the way back to close to $61.00). The information technology (-1.2%) and consumer discretionary (-1.5%) sectors were underperformers.
Further poor hard data for the month of February may have weighed on market sentiment.
US equity markets traded on the back foot for the majority of Wednesday’s session, with all three of the major bourses erasing premarket gains to close in the red. The Nasdaq 100 was the worst-performing of the bunch, dropping 1.7% amid underperformance in Big Tech names including Apple (-1.5%), Facebook (-2.4%) and Amazon (-1.2%), with Tesla also dropping 4.3%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 closed 0.5% and slipped back below the 3900 level, coming within a whisker of last Friday’s 3887 low. The Dow did better but still finished the session 0.1% lower, while small-caps were hit hard, with the Russell 2K down 2.0%. The CBOE Volatility Index rose 0.68 to close just under 21.00.
There was some indication of a return of the economic “reopening” trade, where the S&P 500 value index (flat) outperformed the S&P 500 growth index (-1.1%). In terms of GICS sector performance, the S&P 500 industrial, financial and energy sectors all gained, the latter boosted by an aggressive recovery in crude oil prices (WTI rose over 5.0% to rally all the way back to close to $61.00). The information technology (-1.2%) and consumer discretionary (-1.5%) sectors were underperformers.