An early stock rally faded today, with Wall Street failing to halt a two-day slide as the Dow finished near the bottom of a huge, 300-point swing.
The Dow Jones fell 75 points, or 0.4%. The Dow was doing fine in the first half of the day, gaining as much as 200 points before sinking fast in the afternoon to as much as a 100-point decline. The S&P finished 0.8% lower and the Nasdaq slid 1.5%.
Oil prices remained volatile today as financial markets have come under pressure this week on oversupply concerns after OPEC countries decided to maintain current production levels. Oil prices recouped some losses today after the government reported that crude supplies fell for the first time in 11 weeks, dropping 3.6 million barrels last week. But that faded fast and crude closed in the red.
DuPont gained 12%, contributing about 53 points to the Dow, after it was reported the company was merging with Dow Chemical. Dow Chemical rose 12%. Materials stocks in the S&P 500 jumped 3.1%. The deal maybe did create some euphoria that kept the market up, but it was a false sense of optimism. Everyone just cares about the direction of oil now.
Technology and biotechnology shares were a drag on the broader market, and small-company stocks overall declined.
Oh guess what? In case you forgot, the fed meets next week and will probably raise rates for the first time since the Age of Pericles. I believe the market has discounted all this, but hey, you never know.
We are due for an up day. Probably tomorrow.