24/7 Wall St.

September 24, 2018: Markets lower Monday and neither the S&P 500 nor the Dow reached the greener grass on the other side of the fence. Even the Nasdaq Composite only barely made it. Early reports that deputy U.S. attorney general Rod Rosenstein had either resigned or was about to be fired weighed on traders. The reports turned out to be unfounded. Only the energy sector put up a decent gain while telecom stocks were the big losers.

WTI crude oil for November delivery settled at $72.08 a barrel, up about 1.8% for the day following a weekend announcement from OPEC that it likes the oil market just the way it is. December gold added about 0.3% to settle at $1,204.40. Equities were heading for a narrowly mixed close about 10 minutes before the bell as the Dow traded down 0.61% for the day, the S&P 500 traded down 0.31%, and the Nasdaq Composite traded up 0.08%.

Bitcoin futures (XBTV8) for October delivery traded at $6,620, down about 1.6% on the Cboe after opening at $6,665 this morning. The trading range today was $6,550 to $6,705.

The Dow stock posting the largest daily percentage loss ahead of the close Monday was DowDuPont Inc. (NYSE: DWDP) which traded down 1.93% at $68.35 in a 52-week range of $61.27 to $77.08. Volume was about half the daily average of around 7.1 million shares.

The Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) traded down 1.75% at $84.32. The stock’s 52-week range is $70.73 to $93.51. Volume was about 40% below the daily average of around 7.2 million shares.

The Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD) traded down 1.65% at $208.89. The stock’s 52-week range is $159.75 to $215.43. Volume was about 30% below the daily average of around 3.7 million.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) traded down 1.54% at $53.58. The 52-week range on the stock is $43.97 to $55.42. Volume was about 20% below the daily average of around 12.7 million.

Of the Dow stocks, 7 were set to close higher Monday, and 23 were on track to close lower.