The Standard & Poor’s 500 almost got to break-even late in the day today (at 3:28 p.m. New York time) but stocks couldn’t hold the line.
Still the 0.81% loss at the close for the index as much better than the 2.99% loss at 10:45 this morning.
That was the pattern across indexes and individual stocks.
It was almost as if traders decided that yesterday’s rout was done by this afternoon and then felt they couldn’t get quite that optimistic ahead of the long holiday weekend. (Markets are close on Monday for Labor Day.)
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which had been down 1.63% at noon, closed down 0.56%. The NSDAQ Composite, off 2.65% at noon, finished down 1.27%.
Technology stocks continued to lead the market downward with the Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) down 1.39% at the close versus a 0.76% gain for the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK).
Apple (AAPL) was the only owe of the big tech monsters to finish in the green with a gain of just 0.07%. For the day Alphabet (GOOG) was down 3.09%; Amazon (AMZN) lost 2.18%; Microsoft (MSFT) slid 1.40%, and Facebook (FB) dropped 2.88%.
Beaten up consumer stocks were in the green with American Airlines (AAL) up 1.87% and MGM Resorts International (MGM) adding 1.69%. Carnival (CCL) gained 5.40%. Six Flags (SIX) continued its strong rally on news that creditors had given the company more time on its debt. The stock was up 6.20%
