YEREVAN, June 1. /ARKA/. U.S. stocks fell, paring the seventh monthly gain for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, as better-than-forecast data on business activity and consumer confidence bolstered concern the Federal Reserve will scale back stimulus.
All 10 groups in the S&P 500 retreated, as health-care, energy and consumer staple stocks led declines. Pall Corp. (PLL) retreated 5.1 percent after lowering an earnings forecast. American International Group Inc. slid 3.8 percent after saying it hasn’t received a deposit in the sale of its plane-leasing unit. Monsanto Co. fell 4.1 percent after an unapproved, genetically modified strain of wheat was discovered growing.
The S&P 500 fell 1.4 percent to 1,630.74 in New York after rising as much as 0.3 percent earlier. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 208.96 points, or 1.4 percent, to 15,115.57 today. More than 7.5 billion shares traded hands on U.S. exchanges today, 20 percent higher than the three-month average.
“May will be the seventh month in a row where the S&P 500 has traded higher, and the markets are maybe looking for a reason to pause or consolidate,” Jim Russell, a senior equity strategist in Cincinnati at U.S. Bank Wealth Management, which oversees about $110 billion in assets, said by telephone. “We wouldn’t be surprised to see the market trade sideways to down in the weeks ahead on, call it, slow summer months, questions around Fed tightening and perhaps sluggish earnings growth in the second quarter.”
Changes by MSCI Inc. to its global and U.S. equity indexes were implemented at the close of trading today, a process that can lead to swings in affected stocks. The additions and deletions of stocks, known as rebalancing, to gauges such as the MSCI All-Country World Index and the MSCI World Index of developed-market equities were announced on May 15. –0–
