The United States stocks fell, after a two-day advance in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, as investors weighed economic reports and comments by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, Bloomberg reported.
Sprint Nextel Corp. slid 0.2 per cent as the third-largest US wireless carrier reported a drop in monthly contract subscribers. News Corp retreated 2.1 per cent after cutting its profit forecast because of declining ratings for shows such as “American Idol” and “X Factor.” Yahoo! Inc., the biggest US Web portal, climbed 1.7 per cent as Pivotal Research Group LLC. raised its recommendation on the shares.
The S&P 500 dropped 0.2 per cent to 1,509.04 at 9:55am on Thursday in New York.
The benchmark gauge rose 0.1 per cent yesterday as companies reported better-than-estimated earnings.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 36.15 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 13,950.37 today. Trading in S&P 500 companies was 11 per cent above the 30-day average at this time of day.
“We’re in a digestion stage right now, which is probably healthy,” Hank Smith, who helps oversee $6.5bn as chief investment officer of Haverford Trust Co. in Radnor, Pennsylvania, said in a phone interview. “We look at the trend in economic improvement, which has been positive. There’s no reason why equities can’t have similar returns in 2013 as they did in 2012.”