US close: S&P 500 ends March with small loss after bumper first quarter

By Sharecast News

Sharecast News | 02 Apr, 2017

23:30 04/10/24

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Stocks ended the week and the quarter higher, but ended March on a down note as losses set in during the last half hour of trading on Friday amid a small bout of volatility.

The Dow Jones Industrials Average retreated 0.31% or 65.27 points to end the day at 20,663.22, while the Nasdaq Composite was off by 0.04% at 5,911.74 and the S&P 500 swooned 0.23% to finish at 2,362.72.

For the week as a whole, the S&P climbed 0.8%, capping its drop in March at roughly seven points, but for the quarter as a whole it was 5.5% higher - its best performance since the end of 2015.

By sectors, Friday's best performers were: Coal (3.52%), Aluminum (2.72%) and Marine Transportation (1.73%), whilst the worst performers were Integrated oils (-1.41%), Railroads (-1.34%) and Banks (-1.15%).

Economic data on Friday was a mixed bag, with personal income and spending rising as expected in February but spending slipping by a tenth of a percentage point over the month when adjusted for inflation, following a 0.2% decline in January.

Meanwhile, headline prices as measured by the US Federal Reserve's preferred PCE measure of inflation picked up to a 2.1% year-on-year pace, edging past the central bank's 2.0% target for the first time since April 2012.

At the 'core' level, PCE prices were unchanged from January's upwardly revised pace of 1.8% (Barclays: 1.7%).

Meanwhile, oil prices gained, with West Texas Intermediate rising 28 cents to finish at $50.60 a barrel.

Acting as a backdrop, New York Fed president William Dudley told Bloomberg TV that "a couple more hikes this year seems reasonable" and if the US economy was stronger than expected then the Fed could "do a little more, and if it’s weaker than we expect, we could do a little less".

Tantalisingly, Dudley held out the possibility that when the Fed began to allow its balance sheet to shrink that might substitute for further interest rate hikes.

In other economic data, the MNI Chicago purchasing managers’ index rose to 57.7 in March from 57.4 for the month earlier - a reading above 50 indicates expansion.

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index was revised to 96.9 in March (consensus: 98.0), from a preliminary reading of 97.6 and from 96.3 in February.

In corporate news, Amazon rose 1.06% to a third straight record high after analysts at Loop Capital initiated coverage on the online retail giant at ‘buy’ and set a $1,100 target price.

Blackberry surged 11.51% after the technology company cut losses and said that it anticipates that it will be profitable on an earnings per share basis in 2018.

Akari Therapeutics jumped 58.51% after one of its treatments for a rare and chronic blood disorder was granted ‘fast track designation’ by the US Food and Drug Administration.

FMC Corp climbed 13.15% after DuPont said it will sell part of its crop protection business to the company for $1.2bn and for FMC’s health and nutrition business.

Dow Jones - Risers

Intel Corp. (INTC) $36.07 0.90%
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) $72.08 0.68%
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) $65.86 0.23%
McDonald's Corp. (MCD) $129.61 0.22%
Walt Disney Co. (DIS) $113.39 0.19%
Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) $33.80 0.18%
International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) $174.14 0.16%
Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) $63.54 0.14%
3M Co. (MMM) $191.33 0.03%
Home Depot Inc. (HD) $146.83 -0.08%