Traders work on the New York Stock Exchange floor on November 12, 2024 in New York City.
Source: NYSE
Stocks tumbled on Friday as the postelection rally fizzled, placing the major averages on track for sharp weekly losses.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 292 points, or 0.68%. S&P 500 slipped about 1.1%, while Nasdaq Composite shed 2%.
Pharmaceutical stocks were under pressure after incoming President Donald Trump said he planned to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the U.S. Department Health and Human Services. The SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI) fell more than 4% and was on pace to register its worst week since January 2022.
Shares of Applied Materials, which makes equipment for the chip industry, fell more than 8% after the company gave weak guidance for revenue in the current quarter. Domino’s Pizza jumped nearly 2% after Berkshire Hathaway announced a new stake in the pizza chain.
Stocks took a leg down Thursday afternoon after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said during an event in Dallas that the central bank wasn’t “in a hurry” to cut interest rates. That comes after the Fed cut the borrowing cost last week. Markets have trimmed expectations for another cut at the Fed’s December policy meeting and are now assigning a roughly 59% probability of a quarter percentage point reduction, per the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool, down from 82.5% before Powell’s remarks on Thursday. That’s compared with a 41% probability for holding rates steady next month.
The three major indexes are tracking to end the week lower, giving up some gains seen during last week’s climb on the back of Trump‘s victory in the presidential election. The Nasdaq Composite has dropped 2% this week, while the S&P 500 and Dow have shed 1.4% and 1%, respectively. The Dow closed above 44,000 for the first time ever on Monday.
“Investors are catching their breath and evaluating whether the advance has merit,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research. “We really don’t see anything on the horizon right now to upend stocks, but investors are always sort of looking around to see what could cause the trend to end.”
Retail sales data on Friday showed an increase of 0.4% in October, slightly better than the 0.3% forecast from economists polled by Dow Jones. That caps a busy week for economic data that was punctuated by releases of closely watched inflation gauges focused on consumers and producers.
