24/7 Wall St.

April 19, 2017: The S&P 500 closed lower on the day, down 0.2% and 4.13 points to 2,338.06. Separately the DJIA closed down 0.6% on the day at 20,403.53, down approximately 119.75 points.

Overall Wednesday started out relatively strong with the broad markets and crude oil up. However, everything turned for the worse over the course of the day. Obviously, with crude oil falling, oil & gas stocks took a hit as well as utilities. Separately, there was some weakness in the major financial stocks as well as the consumer goods sector. A few select semiconductor stocks posted solid gains on the day after Lam Research reported a solid earnings beat. Apart from this, a handful of health care stocks and some stocks in the services sector were positive on the day.

Crude oil like the broad markets started out positive but came crashing down as the day went on. Crude was last trading down around 3.8% at $50.42 in the session.

Gold took a hit as well and fell 0.8% or $9.90, closing at $1281.80.

The S&P 500 stock posting the largest daily percentage loss ahead of the close Wednesday was International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) which traded down 5.2% at $161.19. The stock’s 52-week range is $142.50 to $182.79. Volume was 17.8 million versus the daily average of 3.8 million shares. This massive fall was the result of missed earnings and increased pessimism from analysts.

The stock posting the largest daily percentage gain in the S&P 500 ahead of the close Wednesday was Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG) which jumped 6.3% to $807.12. The stock’s 52-week range is $610.71 to $817.20. Volume was roughly 1.0 million which is above the daily average of around 343,000 shares.