Wall Street closes marginally lower as tax plan uncertainty weighs on sentiment

Doubts over the final version of the tax bill continue to hurt sentiment.
Falling oil prices push energy shares lower.
Dow Jones and S&P 500 record first weekly negative close in more than 2 months.

Following another weak start to the day, major equity indexes in the U.S. stretched their losses before staging a recovery in the second half of the session. Nonetheless, indexes closed lower for the second straight day.

Concerns over rising oil production in the U.S. amid increasing number of active rigs weighed on crude oil prices, pushing the barrel of West Texas Intermediate back below the $57 handle and dragging the S&P 500 Energy Sector (SPNY) down nearly 1% on the day.

Tech giants Intel and Microsoft suffered heavy losses as concerns over the long-awaited corporate tax cut, which has been fueling the tech rally in the second half of the year, being delayed until 2019 continued to damage the investors' sentiment. However, the S&P 500 Information Technology Sector (SPLRCT) pared its losses after chipmaker Nvidia gained more than 5% on a better-than-expected third quarter revenue forecast.

Meanwhile, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's comments allowed investors to take a sigh of relief and fueled a late recovery. Mnuchin said that they were going to reconcile the difference between tax bills and were hoping to present the final version of the plan to President Trump in December. Commenting on market expectations on the matter, “there’s not a lot of confidence. I‘m not pessimistic, but there are a lot of pieces that need to be put together,” Arrow Funds Director of Research John Serrapere told Reuters.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 39.7 points, or 0.17%, to 23,422.21, the S&P 500 dropped 2.32 points, 0.09%, to 2,582.30, and the Nasdaq Composite closed virtually unchanged at 6,750.94. On a weekly basis, indexes lost 0.5%, 0.21%, and 0.2% respectively.

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