Wall Street ends lower as investors seek refuge
U.S. stocks finished the day with losses as the fear barometer - the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX -, jumped to its highest level since November.
North Korea on Tuesday warned of a nuclear strike if provoked by the U.S. Navy, which moved to the Korean Peninsula on Sunday. Furthermore, the tensions between Russia and the U.S. continue to rise as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently said that Russia must stop supporting the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
“It seems like a perfect storm of factors re-pricing the reflation trade that we’ve seen since the election,” Michael Lorizio, a Boston-based senior trader at Manulife Asset Management told Bloomberg.
On the other hand, crude oil performed well again on Tuesday despite an early correction and helped the indexes limit the losses. Assisting the crude oil was a recent report by the Wall Street Journal suggesting that Saudi Arabia told OPEC officials it wants to extend production cuts enacted in January for another six months when the group meets in May.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 6.72 points, or 0.03%, to 20,651.37, the S&P 500 fell 1.5 points, or 0.06%, to 2,353.79 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 14.15 points, or 0.24%, to 5,866.77.
Headlines from the U.S. session
- US Dollar corrects as risk aversion wanes
- Fed's Kashkari: We can do a little bit better on Fed's two goals of full employment, stable inflation
- Saudi Arabia wants OPEC to extend production cuts - WSJ
- Fitch affirms U.S. at 'AAA'; outlook stable
- OPEC's 11 states with oil output targets comply 104% with curbs in March - RTRS
- Fed's Williams: Could have three to four rate hikes in 2017