Category: Stock Market News

Shares in women’s apparel chain Bebe Stores Inc. plunged almost 45% during regular trading Tuesday after a report that it will close its brick-and-mortar stores and refocus entirely on online sales. Bloomberg News reported the chain will seek to close about 170 stores without filing for bankruptcy protection, although it said Bebe may need to file Chapter 11 if landlords are not willing to negotiate to end their leases. Bloomberg reported the company had no significant debt, but lost about $200 million over the past four years. Bebe cut about 15% of its corporate workforce during a restructuring in February 2016, and brought back former chief executive Manny Mashouf to run the company. Shares were starting to recover in after-hours trading Tuesday, rising more than 5%.

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The American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reported a climb of 4.5 million barrels in U.S. crude supplies for the week ended March 17, according to sources. The API data also showed a fall of 4.9 million barrels in gasoline supplies and a decline of 833,000 barrels in distillates, sources said. Supply data from the Energy Information Administration will be released Wednesday morning. Analysts polled by S&P Global Platts forecast an increase of 2 million barrels in crude inventories. May crude was at $48.15 a barrel in electronic trading, down from the contract’s settlement of $48.24 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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Fast food executive Andy Puzder will step aside as chief executive of CKE Inc. this year, months after dropping his bid to be labor secretary for President Donald Trump. CKE, which owns the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s chains of restaurants, announced Tuesday afternoon that Jason Marker, the president of Kentucky Fried Chicken U.S., will take over its CEO role in April. “I expressed my desire to have CKE plan for succession approximately a year ago, and I could not be more pleased to have Jason Marker selected to be the company’s next leader,” Puzder said in Tuesday’s announcement. Puzder withdrew his nomination to lead the U.S. Labor Department after being grilled in congressional hearings for the role and admitting that he failed to pay taxes on an undocumented housekeeper.

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The stock market’s internal readings suggest that while bears are dominating bulls, the selling remains relatively calm and collected, which might suggest that many investors aren’t so worried about the market yet. On the New York Stock Exchange, declining stocks outnumbered advancers by a 2,224 to 715 margin. Meanwhile, the NYSE Arms Index, a volume-weighted measure of market breadth many use to measure selling intensity, rose to 1.338. That was only slightly above the equilibrium level of 1.000, which would suggest the intensities of buyers and sellers was in perfect balance, and well below the 2.000 level, that many technicians believe implies panic selling, or capitulation by bull. The S&P 500 slumped 1%, putting it on track to snap a 109-session streak that it closed without a 1% decline.

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Oil prices settled lower on Tuesday, with the April futures contracts expiring at their lowest level since November. The contract expiration on the New York Mercantile Exchange contributed to volatility ahead of the latest weekly data on U.S. crude supplies. Analysts polled by S&P Global Platts forecast an increase of 2 million barrels in crude stockpiles. April West Texas Intermediate crude lost 88 cents, or 1.8%, to settle at $47.34 a barrel. May WTI crude , which is now the front-month contract, lost 67 cents, or 1.4%, to end at $48.24 a barrel.

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Regional bank stocks were pummeled Tuesday, as investors reset expectations of the benefits of rising interest rates and of any potential boost from President Donald Trump’s fiscal plan. The SPDR Regional Banking ETF (KRE) tumbled 5.2% toward the lowest close since Nov. 30, with all 99 of its components trading lower by at least 2%. Seven of the 10 biggest one-day percentage losers in the S&P 500 were KRE components. Among the biggest decliners on Tuesday, shares of California-based Pacific Premier Bancorp Inc. plunged 8.8%, of Arkansas’s Bank of the Ozarks Inc. shed 7.6% and of South Dakota’s Great Western Bancorp Inc. slumped 7.4%. The best performer was Massachusetts-based Bekrshire Hills Bancorp Inc.’s stock , which lost 2.0%. The KRE has now lost 4.8% year to date, while the S&P 500 has gained 5%.

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Gold futures tallied a fourth straight session climb on Tuesday, with dollar-denominated prices for the metal buoyed by a drop in the U.S. Dollar Index to its lowest level in about seven weeks. Euro-dollar gained after France’s first televised presidential debate left pro-euro candidate Emmanuel Macron on solid footing, according to polls, while the British pound gained ahead of the launch of the U.K.’s exit from the European Union. April gold rose $12.50, or 1%, to settle at $1,246.50 an ounce.

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Shares of Bank of America Corp. dropped $1.46, or 6%, to a 1 1/2-month low in active afternoon trade Tuesday, enough to make them the biggest percentage decliner within the S&P 500, amid a selloff in the financial sector and broader stock market as investors started resetting expectations for a boost from President Donald Trump’s policies. Volume spiked to 180.4 million shares, nearly double the full-day average of 92.4 million shares, and enough to make the stock the most actively traded on the NYSE. The stock was on track to suffer the biggest one-day percentage decline since June 27, 2016, and the biggest one-day price drop since Aug. 8, 2011. The stock was underperforming the SPDR Financial Select Sector ETF , which shed 2.7%, and the S&P 500 , which slumped 1.1%.

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Apple Inc.’s stock has turned lower in midday trade, following a sharp pullback in the broader stock market. Apple share had been up as much as 0.9% at an all-time intraday high of $142.80 soon after the open, but has trended lower since, to be down 0.3%. The earlier gains came in the wake of updates to the tech giant’s iPhone and iPad offerings. In comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 154 points, or 0.7%, after being up 64 points earlier, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.1% after being up 0.4% earlier.

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The Dow and the S&P 500 index on Tuesday are on the verge of halting a monthslong streak without a 1% decline. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 176 points or 0.9% at 20,722, while the S&P 500 index was down 0.9% at 2,351. The two main stock-market gauges have gone a history-setting 109 trading days, since Oct. 11, without posting a 1% drop, but a sudden late-morning slide is threatening to push the indexes sharply lower. The S&P 500 needs to decline by about 23 points to register its 1% decline, while the Dow would require a fall of more than 200 points for a 1% tumble. The catalyst for Tuesday’s slump wasn’t clear but financial stocks were among the worst decliners with Goldman Sachs Group delivering the biggest blow to the blue-chip Dow gauge and financials weighing heavily on the S&P 500. The broad-market S&P 500’s streak without a 1% down day is the longest since May 18, 1995 and the longest since Sept. 20, 1993, for the Dow, according to Dow Jones data.

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