Financial shares on Tuesday were facing their worst single-session slump in weeks as benchmark yields slumped amid elevated geopolitical worries swirling in the market. A popular exchange-traded fund used to bet on financial performance, the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF , was off 1.5%, putting it on pace to book its steepest one-day slide since Aug. 17, when it fell 1.7%, according to FactSet data. The decline in financials, highlighted by a 3.2% fall in shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. , came as the yield for the 10-year benchmark Treasury slipped to its lowest level, around 2.08%, since Nov. 10, just after President Donald Trump was elected into office. Global unrest centered on rising military tensions between North Korea and the rest of the globe after the Hermit Kingdom tested a hydrogen bomb over the weekend has underpinned a flight to assets perceived as safe, like government paper, which has pushed yields to lows. Bond prices and yields move inversely. More broadly, the financial sector was the worst performer group among the S&P 500’s 11. The broad-market gauge was down 0.5% at 2,464, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 0.7% at 21,845, with Goldman’s shares exacting the biggest toll on the price-weighted benchmark. The Nasdaq Composite Index was 0.6% lower at 6,397.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
From:: Stock Market News