Wall Street close: Benchmarks mostly lower on Apple's announcements

Retrujng from Presidents Day holiday,  the US benchmarks were offered on Tuesday and were mostly lower Tuesday following the tech giant Apple Inc. warning that it wouldn't hit its sales target for the current quarter. The coronavirus is starting to reveal the damage to industry which has weighed heavily on risk appetite. 

Market performances

Subsequently, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,-lost around 166 points, or 0.6%, to end near 29,232. Shares of Dow component Apple AAPL, -1.83% fell 1.8%. The S&P 500 SPX shed 10 points, or 0.3%, to close near 3,370. The Nasdaq Composite was bucking the trend by adding a little more than 1.5 points, or less than 0.1%, to finish near 9,733, eeking out a record close. This followed the FTSE 100 and DAX losing around 0.7%. As for US yields, the US 10-year yield was 3bps lower at 1.55%. Oil was sliding as well, with WTI prices falling 0.4% to USD51.8/bbl, while gold firmed 1.3% to $1,600.6/oz.

In other related news, Moody’s downgraded its growth forecast for China to 5.2% (from 5.8%). We were scarce of US data, but the Dallas Fed Reserve President Kaplan repeated that the setting of US interest rates is “roughly appropriate” but noted the rising risks associated with COVID-19.

DJIA levels