Wednesday's Biggest Winners and Losers in the S&P 500

Wednesday was a down day for the broad U.S. markets, with everything somewhat mixed early in the day then, around 2 pm Eastern, all going South. At that time, the FOMC released the minutes from its most recent meeting and decided to keep interest rates steady in the range. Crude oil made a small gain in the session. The S&P 500 sectors were almost entirely negative. The most positive sector was energy up 0.4%. The worst performing sectors were consumer staples, health care, and financials down 2.0%, 1.4%, and 1.2%, respectively.

Crude oil was up 0.8% at $67.81.

Gold was flat at $1,305.50.

The S&P 500 stock posting the largest daily percentage loss ahead of the close Wednesday was Unum Group (NYSE: UNM) which traded down about 17% at $39.80. The stock’s 52-week range is $39.63 to $58.73. Volume was 7.8 million compared to the daily average volume of 1.6 million.

The stock posting the largest daily percentage gain in the S&P 500 ahead of the close Wednesday was Frontier Communications Corp. (NASDAQ: FTR) which rose about 27% to $10.38. The stock’s 52-week range is $6.08 to $26.85. Volume was 12.4 million compared to the daily average volume of 3.2 million.