Wall Street closed lower in a lackluster return to trading Tuesday following a three-day holiday weekend.
- The S&P 500 fell 17.85 points, or 0.4%, to 4,765.98.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 231.86 points, or 0.6%, to 37,361.12.
- The Nasdaq composite fell 28.41 points, or 0.2%, to 14,944.35.
Morgan Stanley sank after a legal matter and a special assessment knocked more than half a billion dollars off its pretax earnings, while Spirit Airlines nearly halved, falling 47.1% after a federal judge
blocked its takeover by JetBlue Airways. JetBlue rose 4.9%
Stocks of banks were mixed, meanwhile, as earnings reports ramp up for the final three months of 2023. Morgan Stanley sank 4.2% after it said a legal matter and a special assessment knocked $535 million off its pretax earnings, while Goldman Sachs edged 0.7% higher after reporting results that topped Wall Street's forecasts. Companies across the S&P 500 are likely to report meager growth in profits for the fourth quarter from a year earlier, if any, if Wall Street analysts' forecasts are to be believed. Earnings have been under pressure for more than a year because of rising costs amid high inflation. But optimism is higher for 2024, where analysts are forecasting a strong 11.8% growth in earnings per share for S&P 500 companies, according to FactSet.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 4.05% from 3.95% late Friday to add pressure on the stock market. Higher yields can drag on corporate profits, among other negatives for investors, though the 10-year yield is still well below the 5% level it reached in October.
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On Wall Street, Boeing fell to one of the market's sharper losses as worries continue about troubles for its 737 Max 9 aircraft following the recent in-flight blowout of an Alaska Airlines jet. Boeing sank 7.9%. On the winning side was Carrols Restaurant Group, the largest Burger King franchisee in the US, which jumped 12.5%. Restaurant Brands International said it will buy all the stock of Carrols that it doesn't already own for $9.55 per share in cash. (More stock market stories.)
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