Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

U.S. stocks give up early gain, move lower; Yahoo down

NEW YORK — The stock market has given up an early gain and is trading lower at mid-morning Wednesday as investors give a thumbs-down to a number of corporate earnings reports, including steep cutbacks at Yahoo. Chipotle Mexican Grill also plunged after saying an E. coli outbreak at its restaurants hurt sales more than anticipated.

KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average lost 62 points, or 0.4 percent, to 16,094 as of 10 a.m. Eastern time. The Standard & Poor's 500 index gave up 12 points, or 0.7 percent, to 1,890 and the Nasdaq composite fell 48 points, or 1.1 percent, to 4,468.

ENERGY RECHARGE: Crude oil prices recovered a little bit of ground after two days of steep losses. New York crude was up 56 cents at $30.44 a barrel while Brent crude, used to price international oils, rose 77 cents to $33.49 a barrel. The pickup in energy prices didn't give much of a boost to the beaten-down energy sector, however.

EUROPE WANING TOO: Among the economic worries this week, added to the mix Wednesday were renewed fears over the slowdown in Europe. A purchasing managers survey by Markit fell in January, a sign that the turmoil in global financial markets is beginning to weigh on business.

CUTBACKS: Yahoo slumped $1.90, or 7 percent, to $27.12 after the company announced late Tuesday it would cut 1,700 jobs and sell some of the company's struggling businesses.

ON A DIET: Chipotle fell $28.87, or 6 percent, to $447.83 after the company said the E. coli outbreak at its stores hurt sales more than anticipated. Chipotle also disclosed it was now under investigation by Federal regulators over the outbreak.

BONDS, CURRENCIES: U.S. government bond prices didn't move much. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was unchanged at 1.85 percent. It was a pretty flat day in currency markets with the euro up 0.1 percent at $1.0933 and the dollar 0.3 percent lower at 119.41 yen.

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