26 June, 2017
The Nasdaq index, which was buoyed by a tech rally on Monday, dropped 0.2% to 6,224.71. Drillers have gotten much more efficient at pulling oil out of the ground, which has helped supplies balloon and weigh on prices.
Other markets:Stocks in Asia closed mostly lower (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/global-oil-slump-weighs-on-asian-markets-2017-06-20), but with the Shanghai Composite Index bucking the negative trend and rising 0.5%.
CHINA: Global stock benchmark provider MSCI chose to include 222 large Chinese companies in 2018 to its Emerging Markets index, which is closely followed by fund managers.
Wall Street declined from record highs as oil prices slid to the lowest level in seven months amid unabated concern about the global glut. "Falling oil prices also hurts sentiment towards the higher-yielding emerging markets, but a steep drop in the price of oil usually spreads bearish sentiment more broadly".
Stocks to watch: Shares of Red Hat Inc.(RHT) jumped almost 10% after the open-source software company late Tuesday posted earnings ahead of forecasts (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/red-hat-jumps-to-highest-price-levels-since-dot-com-boom-2017-06-20). After being up by as much as 1.6 percent earlier in the day, benchmark USA crude turned lower and was down 12 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $43.39 per barrel.
Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said on Tuesday the current low-rate environment was likely to remain for some time, adding that low rates handicap the central bank's ability to "offset negative shocks". Brent crude, the worldwide standard, fell 24 cents to $45.78.
"Earnings are starting to re-accelerate", he said.
MARKETS OVERSESAS: The French CAC 40 slipped 0.3 percent, the German DAX lost 0.6 percent and the FTSE 100 fell 0.7 percent.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 61.85 points, or 0.3 percent, to 21,467.14.
Among stocks, Lennar rose 4.2 percent to $54.91 after the No. 2 USA homebuilder reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit.
Parexel jumped $3.33, or 4 percent, to $87.25. Apple fell 0.5 percent and Microsoft gave up 0.4 percent.
In the Treasury market, bond prices rose, which caused yields to fall. They are now down almost 15 percent for the year, while the overall S&P 500 is up 8.8 percent.
Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes last rose 9/32 in price to yield 2.1565 per cent, down from 2.188 per cent late on Monday. Natural gas rose 3 cents to $2.94 per 1,000 cubic feet, heating oil was flat at $1.40 per gallon and wholesale gasoline was unchanged at $1.42 per gallon. Microsoft gave up 1 percent and Applied Materials fell 1.4 percent. The euro rose to $1.1167 from $1.1128, and the dollar dipped to 111.34 Japanese yen from 111.41 yen.
