Major wall street indices fell from record levels on Monday as investors sought cues from first-quarter earnings reports to justify the rich valuation of equities, while Tesla shares fell following a fatal car crash.
The electric-car maker was down 3.5% after a Tesla vehicle, which was believed to be operating without anyone in the driver’s seat, crashed into a tree on Saturday night north of Houston, killing two occupants.
The stock, which was the biggest drag on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, was also under pressure due to a sharp drop in bitcoin over the weekend.
The S&P 500 was mostly lower, with Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Nvidia Corp also weighing on the benchmark index as analysts await results this week and next that form the bulk of earnings season.
Corporate outlooks should indicate to what degree the rally from last year’s lows can continue. Analysts expect first-quarter earnings to have grown 30.9% from a year ago, according to Refinitiv IBES data.
The U.S. economy is poised to boom as consumers hold $2 trillion in savings in excess of pre-pandemic levels, said Doug Peta, chief U.S. investment strategist at BCA Research, adding markets are in pause mode.
“If indeed we do keep grinding higher that would be healthy, that would suggest that the grinding higher is sustainable,” Peta said. “The pullbacks along the way are healthy.”
Real estate was the only one of the 11 S&P 500 sectors to post gains for wall street investors.
Nvidia fell 3.5% on wall street after the UK government said it would look into the national security implications of Nvidia’s purchase of British chip designer ARM Holdings, raising a question mark over the $40 billion deal.
Coca-Cola Co rose 1% after the beverage maker trounced estimates for quarterly profit and revenue, benefiting from the easing of pandemic curbs and wide vaccine rollouts.
IBM Corp, another blue-chip company, slipped about 0.2% on wall street ahead of its results after market close.
”The market has had a huge jump to the upside so it needs to take a little bit of rest,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.
”For now it’s just a little bit of profit taking as traders await results from big tech names on Wall Street.”
Wall Street Index Overview
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 123.04 points, or 0.36%, to 34,077.63. The S&P 500 lost 22.21 points, or 0.53%, at 4,163.26; while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 137.58 points, or 0.98%, to 13,914.77 as volume on U.S. exchanges was 9.86 billion shares.
A recent retreat in benchmark 10-year Treasury yields from 14-month highs has helped high-flying technology stocks to rebound, while strong economic data has lifted the S&P 500 and the Dow to record levels.
The S&P 500 has gained the past four weeks, its longest winning streak since August 2020.
GameStop Corp jumped 6.3% on wall street after the announcement of its chief executive’s resignation while Harley-Davidson Inc jumped 9.7% after the motorcycle maker raised it full-year forecast for sales growth.
Crypto stocks including miners Riot Blockchain and Marathon Digital each fell more than 8% as bitcoin took a hammering over the weekend. Bitcoin closed down 0.7%.
