NEW YORK: Wall Street’s main indexes fell on Monday in late morning trade as investors awaited cues from the Federal Reserve this week amid caution over rising borrowing costs spurred by massive fiscal stimulus.
Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways said leisure bookings are rising and offered some of the first concrete signs that the worst may be over for the airline industry.
The S&P 1500 airlines index jumped about 5% to a one-year high, while other travel-related stocks including Carnival Corp, Wynn Resorts and MGM Resorts gained between 3% and 5%.
The major stock indexes on Friday logged their best week in six as approval of a $1.9 trillion aid bill and mass vaccinations accelerated demand for economy-linked stocks such as banks, energy, materials at the cost of high-growth tech names.
The major US stock indexes were roiled in recent weeks as a spike in longer-dated US bond yields due to fears of an increase in inflation and, in response, a tapering of the Fed’s easy monetary policy worried investors.
“Investors are not in the mood to take on much risk as they factor in the possibility of higher inflation irrespective of what central banks say,” said Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst and economist at ThinkMarkets in London.
At the end of Fed’s two-day meeting on Wednesday, policymakers are expected to forecast that the US economy will grow in 2021 at the fastest rate in decades while reiterating their dovish stance for the foreseeable future.
The yields on benchmark 10-year Treasuries ticked lower to 1.60%, below their 13-month peak of 1.64% on Friday.
At 11:37 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 139.06 points, or 0.42%, to 32,639.58, the S&P 500 lost 17.38 points, or 0.44%, to 3,926.14 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 35.23 points, or 0.26%, to 13,284.63.
Five of the 11 major S&P sectors were lower, with financials and energy leading the losses.
The Russell 2000 growth index, which consists of technology stocks, added 0.2% while its counterpart, the value index, slipped 0.2%.
Tesla Inc added “Technoking of Tesla” to billionaire Chief Executive Elon Musk’s list of official titles in a formal regulatory filing that also named finance chief Zachary Kirkhorn “Master of Coin”. Tesla’s shares were nearly flat.
Eli Lilly and Co shares slumped about 8.5% after “mixed” results from the drugmaker’s mid-stage trial testing its experimental drug to treat Alzheimer’s cast a doubt on the chances for the drug’s accelerated approval, according to analysts.
Declining issues matched advancers on the NYSE and outnumbered them by a 1.4-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500 posted 69 new 52-week highs and no new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 315 new highs and 32 new lows.
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