Investing.com – Despite a higher open, Wall Street reversed course and registered slight losses on Wednesday as the Dow buckled under the pressure of dizzying heights at 20,000 points.
At 11:55AM ET (16:55GMT), the Dow Jones slipped 21 points, or 0.03%, the S&P 500 gave up 10 points or 0.44%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite traded down 25 points, or 0.46%.
U.S. stocks have rallied sharply since the November 8 election day market close in what many analysts refer to as the “Trump rally” on the back of hopes that the incoming president will implement fiscal policies that will spur growth and be positive for stocks.
After two consecutive stabs, bridging the long Christmas weekend, at recovering the record high of 19,987.63 points reached on December 20, the Dow saw buying sentiment fizzle on Wednesday in a session with few references to back the continuing rally.
Market participants have so far balked at the psychologically important 20,000-point level, with experts suggesting that Trump will need to follow through on expectations in order for stocks to be able to maintain the upward momentum.
On a light calendar day, November pending home sales gave some sobering news as an unexpected decline dampened optimism over the housing market.
However, coming just after official data showed that consumer confidence hit more than a 15-year high in December, retail industry groups affirmed that consumer spending in the final stretch of December boomed, likely helping many retailers to beat sales forecasts, according to a Reuters’ report.
Related to the economic front and the “Trump rally”, a spokesman for the incoming president said that he would be making an announcement between 4PM ET and 5PM ET (21:00-22:00GMT) on the economy that “should be very positive for American workers.”
No further details were given and it was unclear if the announcement would be related to naming his appointment for Agriculture Secretary. Trump was previously scheduled to meet with former Texas A&M president Elsa Murano, one of the three contenders, later on Wednesday.
On a slow day for company news flow, shares of Anthera Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ANTH) crashed 65% after its Sollpura drug missed a primary endpoint in its Phase 3 solution study.
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) gave up 0.7% as reports indicated that Germany was considering fining social networks up to €500,000 ($519,650) for each “fake news” story the platform posts without deleting.
Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) was off 0.4% despite landing two government contracts worth a total of about $61 million.
Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) achieved U.S. antitrust conditional approval for its acquisition of St Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) after divesting two of its medical device divisions.
Meanwhile, oil prices continued to move higher amid thinning pre-New Year holiday trade on Wednesday, as major global oil producers geared up to begin to scale back production starting January 1 in line with the deal they struck last month.
Optimism over the deal continued on Wednesday ahead of a report on weekly U.S. crude inventories from the American Petroleum Institute (API) out later in the session, followed by the official report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Thursday.
The reports are released one day later than normal due to last Monday’s holiday.
U.S. crude futures gained 0.58% to $54.21 by 11:56AM ET (15:56GMT), while Brent oil traded up 0.40% to $57.06.