April 2, 2018: Markets opened lower Monday and nothing good happened for the rest of the day. The Dow traded about 250 points below its closing level on the last day of trading in 2017 while the Nasdaq Composite sank below its end-of-2017 price as well. The S&P 500 and the Dow have slipped below their 200-day moving averages and the Nasdaq is quickly closing in on that milestone.
WTI crude oil for May delivery settled at $63.01 a barrel, down about 3% for the day. June gold added about 1.4% on the day to settle at $1,345.80. The most active contract closed down 2.1% for the week but remains up 1.4% for the quarter. Equities were headed for a lower close about 10 minutes before the bell as the Dow traded down 2.18% for the day, the S&P 500 traded down 2.42%, and the Nasdaq Composite traded down 2.87% after taking a late bounce..
Bitcoin futures (XBTJ8) for April delivery traded at $7,000, down about 3.3% on the CBOE after opening at $6,920 this morning. The digital currency’s trading range for the day was $6,770 to $7,140.
The Dow stock posting the largest daily percentage loss ahead of the close Monday was Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) which traded down 6.56% at $48.66 in a 52-week range of $33.23 to $53.78. Volume of about 55 million shares was more than 50% above the daily average. A report that Apple will design and manufacture its own CPUs only made an already bad day worse.
Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) traded down 4.76% at $40.85. The stock’s 52-week range is $30.36 to $46.16. Volume was about 10% below the daily average of around 30 million. The company had no specific news.
Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) traded down 4.19% at $85.25. The stock’s 52-week range is $71.38 to $109.98. Volume was about 25% above the daily average of around 12 million shares. The company had no specific news Thursday.
Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) traded down 3.94% at $63.82. The stock’s 52-week range is $50.35 to $70.25. Volume was about 15% higher than the daily average of around 8 million. The company had no specific news.
Of the Dow stocks, only one (UnitedHealth Group) is on track to close higher Monday and 29 are set to close lower.
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Equity indexes traded very near the break-even line just minutes before the closing bell. The closing tally could show either a small gain or a small loss for any of the indexes.
Stocks traded very near the break-even line just minutes before the closing bell. The closing tally could finish with either a small gain or a small loss for any or all of the indexes.
Today’s four leading gainers account for more than 22% of the Dow’s price-weighted index.
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