Wall Street’s main indexes fell on Friday following a report that the Federal Reserve plans to cut interest rates by only a quarter-percentage point at the end of the month.
The benchmark S&P 500 erased earlier marginal gains after a Wall Street Journal report on the Fed’s plans.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 68.77 points, or 0.25 per cent, to 27,154.2, the S&P 500 lost 18.5 points, or 0.62 per cent, to 2,976.61 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 60.75 points, or 0.74 per cent, to 8,146.49.
For the week, the Dow lost 0.64 per cent, the S&P fell 1.23 per cent and the Nasdaq shed 1.19 per cent, reports AP.
Boeing Co shares gained 4.5 per cent, despite the planemaker’s disclosure that it would take a $4.9 billion after-tax hit from the grounding of its 737 MAX, indicating that investors had expected more severe repercussions.
Kansas City Southern shares rose 4.6 per cent after the railroad operator posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit. Its shares helped the Dow Jones Transport index .DJT gain 0.6 per cent.
Shares of American Express Co slipped 2.8 per cent after the credit card issuer warned of higher operating costs this year as it spends heavily on rewards programmes to attract customers.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.29-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.51-to-1 ratio favoured decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 45 new 52-week highs and five new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 75 new highs and 84 new lows.
Volume on US exchanges was 6.25 billion shares, compared to the 6.59 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.
