US STOCKS-Wall Street ends mostly lower as chipmakers ease; inflation data ahead

General Electric Co

13/03/2024 20:53

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      Dollar Tree to close nearly 1,000 stores, shares drop
    

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      Intel down on report Pentagon scraps $2.5 bln chip grant
plan
    

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      Indexes: Dow up 0.1%, S&P 500 down 0.2%, Nasdaq down 0.5%
    

  
 (Updates with final closing data, volume)
    By Caroline Valetkevitch
       NEW YORK, March 13 (Reuters) - 
    The S&P 500 and Nasdaq edged lower on Wednesday as investors
took profits in chipmaker stocks, while they braced for producer
price data and further clues on the inflation trend ahead of
next week's Federal Reserve meeting.
        An index of semiconductors  .SOX  eased 2.5% after
recent strong gains, but was up 17% for the year to date. Shares
of Nvidia  NVDA.O , which have led the recent rally fueled by
optimism about artificial intelligence, fell 1.1%.
  
    Investors are looking ahead to Nvidia's global GTC developer
conference on AI from March 18-21 and any AI-related
announcements.
        
    Intel  INTC.O  shares fell 4.4%. Bloomberg reported that the
Pentagon had pulled out of a plan to spend as much as $2.5
billion on a chip grant to the company.
        February U.S. producer price data due on Thursday could
offer further insight into the inflation picture. 
  
        "The last reading actually helped to underscore the
hotter inflation trend. So this is going to be important," said
Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist at LPL Financial in
Charlotte, North Carolina.
  
        While the U.S. central bank is widely expected to leave
interest rates unchanged when it meets next week, traders see a
65% chance of the first rate cut coming in June, the CME
FedWatch Tool showed.
        The Dow Jones Industrial Average  .DJI  rose 37.83
points, or 0.1%, to 39,043.32. The S&P 500  .SPX  lost 9.96
points, or 0.19%, at 5,165.31 and the Nasdaq Composite  .IXIC 
dropped 87.87 points, or 0.54%, to 16,177.77.
  
    Tuesday's slightly hotter-than-expected consumer price data
failed to dampen hopes of rate cuts in the coming months.
    Monthly U.S. retail sales data also is due on Thursday.
        Among other declining shares, Dollar Tree  DLTR.O 
slumped 14.2% after the discount store chain said it would close
nearly 1,000 stores and posted a net loss in the previous
quarter, hurt by an over-$1 billion goodwill impairment charge. 
    McDonald's  MCD.N  shares fell 3.9% after its chief
financial officer said international sales could fall
sequentially in the current quarter.
    Volume on U.S. exchanges was 11.12 billion shares, compared
with the 12 billion average for the full session over the last
20 trading days.
        Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by a
1.53-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.07-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
  
        The S&P 500 posted 59 new 52-week highs and no new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded 89 new highs and 110 new lows.  
  

 (Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; additional reporting by
Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing
by Pooja Desai and Richard Chang)
 ((caroline.valetkevitch@thomsonreuters.com))