Selling Again Hits Most Sectors, but Late Rally Cuts Losses
Updated from 1:31 p.m. EDT
Broad-based selling continued to afflict practically every sector of the market as the weakness in airlines and energy shares spread into defense and basic materials issues, but many groups managed to come off their session lows as a late-day rally swept through the market.
Airlines mostly slid following a brief reprieve Tuesday, but many of the stocks closed above their lows of the day.
AMR
(AMR) - Get Alpha Metallurgical Resources Inc. Report
, the parent of
American Airlines
and
TWA
, fell 1% to $19.81, while
Delta Air Lines
(DAL) - Get Delta Air Lines Inc. Report
rose 0.5% to $23.03.
UAL
(UAL) - Get United Airlines Holdings Inc. Report
, the holding company for
TheStreet Recommends
United Airlines
, dipped 1.8% to $18.65, and
Northwest
(NWAC)
dropped 9.5% to $11.68.
Continental
,
(CAL) - Get Caleres Inc. Report
, which was in positive territory earlier, was back in negative territory, losing 0.7% to $17.59.
US Airways
(U) - Get Unity Software Inc. Report
also reversed the positive trend, slipping 5.3% to $5.50.
Southwest
(LUV) - Get Southwest Airlines Company Report
was up 1.2% to $13.14.
Technology stocks were shaky, but again rebounded from their lows of the session.
Dell
(DELL) - Get Dell Technologies Inc. Class C Report
, was off 3.7%,
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Microsoft Corporation Report
, down 1.2%, and
Oracle
(ORCL) - Get Oracle Corporation Report
slipped 1.1%.
Cisco
(CSCO) - Get Cisco Systems Inc. Report
slipped 0.6%, and
Sun Microsystems
(SUNW) - Get Sunworks Inc. Report
dropped 1.4%.
Texas Instruments
(TXN) - Get Texas Instruments Incorporated Report
shed 1.8%, and
Intel
(INTC) - Get Intel Corporation Report
lost 5.4%.
Aerospace and defense companies produced mixed results.
Raytheon
(RTN) - Get Raytheon Company Report
finished ahead 3.7% to $32.72.
Northrop Grumman
(NOC) - Get Northrop Grumman Corporation Report
rose 1.6% to $96.30.
Lockheed Martin
(LMT) - Get Lockheed Martin Corporation Report
continued to slide, falling 3.3% to $43.14.
Brokerage stocks primarily sold off, but pared their losses by the closing bell.
Morgan Stanley
(MWD)
was unchanged, but
Goldman Sachs
(GS) - Get Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (The) Report
rose 0.5% to $67.83.
Merrill Lynch
(MER)
was down 2.1%, while
Lehman Brothers
(LEH)
sank 2.6%.
Charles Schwab
(SCH)
dipped 6.9%.
Bank of America
(BAC) - Get Bank of America Corporation Report
was down 0.1%, while
Citigroup
(C) - Get Citigroup Inc. Report
fell 1.6%, and
American Express
(AXP) - Get American Express Company Report
fell 4.5%.
Insurers were also hurting Wednesday with the group facing up to $30 billion in claims from last week's attacks, according to
Bloomberg
.
ACE
(ACE)
lost 8.2% to $23.87.
American International Group
(AIG) - Get American International Group Inc. Report
lost 0.5%, while
XL Capital
(XL) - Get XL Fleet Corp. Class A Report
dropped 4.7% to $65.37.
Energy companies were broadly lower as the price of oil continued to sink. Oil refiner
Sunoco
(SUN) - Get Sunoco LP representing limited partner interests Report
was off 4.7% to $34.20, while
Royal Dutch Petroleum
(RD)
sank 5.2% to $48.05.
Phillips Petroleum
(P)
slipped 5.1% to $52.84, while
Schlumberger
(SLB) - Get Schlumberger N.V. Report
dipped 7.1% to $44.20.
Texaco
(TX) - Get Ternium S.A. American Depositary Shares (each representing ten shares USD1.00 par value) Report
,
Exxon Mobil
(XOM) - Get Exxon Mobil Corporation Report
,
Kerr-McGee
(KMG)
and
Halliburton
(HAL) - Get Halliburton Company Report
were also lower.
Basic materials stocks, which were mixed earlier, were down across the board in the afternoon.
DuPont
(DD) - Get DuPont de Nemours Inc. Report
and
Westvaco
(W) - Get Wayfair Inc. Class A Report
were in the red. DuPont fell 0.8% to $35.08, while paper products company Westvaco dropped 3.7% to $25.35. Chemical company
Hercules
(HPC)
fell 3.5% to $8.77. Paper products companies such as
Weyerhauser
(WY) - Get Weyerhaeuser Company Report
,
Williamette Industries
(WLL) - Get Whiting Petroleum Corporation (New) Report
were lower, but
Georgia-Pacific
(GP) - Get GreenPower Motor Company Inc. Report
inched up. Steelmakers
Nucor
(NUE) - Get Nucor Corporation Report
and
Allegheny Technologies
(ATI) - Get Allegheny Technologies Incorporated Report
lost ground.
Retailers were mixed.
Wal-Mart
(WMT) - Get Walmart Inc. Report
rose 0.5%, and
Kmart
(K) - Get Kellogg Company Report
climbed 2.8%.
Home Depot
(HD) - Get Home Depot Inc. (The) Report
lost 3.8%.
Apparel retailer
Gap
(GPS) - Get Gap Inc. (The) Report
rose 2.4%, while
Federated Department Stores
undefined
sank 2.6%, to $28.
Sears
(S) - Get SentinelOne Inc. Class A Report
was down 3% to $33.08. Online retailer
Amazon.com
(AMZN) - Get Amazon.com Inc. Report
gained 0.3%, and bookseller
Barnes & Noble
(BKS) - Get Barnes & Noble, Inc. Report
was up 2.2% to $35.60.
In the consumer products arena,
Procter & Gamble
(PG) - Get Procter & Gamble Company (The) Report
rose 0.5%.
Philip Morris
(MO) - Get Altria Group Inc. Report
slipped 0.6%, and
McDonald's
(MCD) - Get McDonald's Corporation Report
gained 1.8%.
Coca-Cola
(KO) - Get Coca-Cola Company (The) Report
tacked on 3 cents to $49.50, and
Gillette
(G) - Get Genpact Limited Report
was down 2.1% to $29.96.
Media stocks, which were trending higher in morning activity, were pushed back, but
AOL Time Warner
(AOL)
was up 1.6% to $30.95, while newspaper publishers
Tribune
(TRB)
and
Knight Ridder
(KRI)
were both down slightly.
Gannett Company
(GCI) - Get Gannett Co. Inc. Report
was off a penny to $60.44.
