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U.S. stocks dipped on Wednesday, taking a breather following a strong start to the month that lifted the S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite to record highs in the previous session.
The Dow Jones Industrials began Wednesday tumbled 126.36 points to 29,697.56.
The S&P 500 settled 13.03 points from Tuesday’s closing high at 3,649.42.
The NASDAQ dropped 119.41 points from Tuesday’s all-time closing peak to 12,246.33.
Dow component Salesforce announced it is acquiring messaging platform Slack for $27.7 billion after the bell on Tuesday. The Slack deal marks the cloud software vendor’s largest deal ever. Shares of Salesforce were off 8.6%.
Investors digested more positive Covid-19 vaccine news on Wednesday. The UK authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for use, marking another step in the global battle against the pandemic.
Wednesday’s losses came after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected a bipartisan proposal for a $908-billion stimulus package aimed at breaking the stalemate over new stimulus in Congress.
Equities were also under pressure after President-elect Joe Biden told The New York Times he would not immediately remove tariffs placed by the Trump administration targeting China.
Despite the positive vaccine data, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell called the economic outlook “extraordinarily uncertain” on Tuesday when he and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke before Congress this week as part of mandated updates on CARES Act funding. Mnuchin did call on Congress for $300 billion in aid for restaurants heading into the winter months.
On the data front, private payrolls rose by 307,000 in November, according to ADP. Economists polled by Dow Jones are expecting 475,000 private jobs were added in November, compared to the 365,000 added in October. The number was also the lowest since July. ADP’s report comes days ahead of the U.S. Labor Department’s monthly jobs report.
Prices for the 10-Year Treasury retreated, pushing yields up to 0.95% from Tuesday’s 0.92%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices acquired three cents to $44.58 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices rose $2.20 to $1,821.10 U.S.
