US stocks retreat; Dow record winning streak ends
The Dow Wednesday snapped a four-day streak of record highs in a US equity retreat attributed in part to a shock Republican primary election and profit taking.
At the closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 99.73 points (0.59 percent) to 16,846.19.
The broad-based S&P 500 fell 6.73 (0.34 percent) to 1,944.06, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index dipped 6.07 (0.14 percent) to 4,331.93
The losses came after the World Bank trimmed its 2014 global growth forecast to 2.8 percent from its January forecast of 3.2 percent.
Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank, said the World Bank report “sent a sorry signal to investors this morning.”
Ablin also cited the unexpected defeat of House Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a Virginia primary battle to Tea Party-backed insurgent David Brat.
Cantor “was one of the biggest friends of Wall Street and the election of somebody openly antagonistic to Wall Street” sparked worries, Ablin said.
Other analysts said the World Bank report and the Cantor defeat were less significant factors in the stocks retreat than investor fatigue following the recent rally.
Cantor’s defeat is “a convenient excuse to do some profit taking,” said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare.
Source:Yahoo
