S&P 500 slips, snaps five-day streak of record closes

NEW YORK: The S&P 500 broke a five-day streak of record closing
highs on Thursday, ending a fairly volatile session lower as the
market's recent momentum faded and Apple's shares declined.
The Dow also broke its two-day string of all-time closing highs, but still ended above 15,000.
The
length of the recent rally has surprised many investors. Analysts said
it's difficult for the upward momentum to continue without further
catalysts, such as first-quarter earnings reports, which are nearing an
end.
Volume was the highest of the week so far, giving more
weight to the day's decline. Much of this year's rally has been on weak
volume.
"This market is so stretched to the upside that if we
get some little wiggle somewhere, I can easily see us getting back down
to 1,580" on the S&P 500, said Stephen Massocca, managing director of Wedbush Equity Management LLC in San Francisco.
Apple , down 0.9 percent at $456.77, led the declines of both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, while International Business Machines , down 0.8 percent at $203.24, was the biggest drag on the Dow.
The
day's economic data was mostly positive, but failed to give much of a
boost to stocks. The number of Americans filing new claims for
unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level in almost
5-1/2 years - contrary to economists' forecast of a gain - U.S. Labor
Department data showed.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> fell 22.50 points, or 0.15 percent, to end at 15,082.62. The Standard & Poor's
500 Index <.SPX> declined 6.02 points, or 0.37 percent, to finish
at 1,626.67. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> slipped 4.10
points, or 0.12 percent, to close at 3,409.17.
After the bell, shares of Priceline fell 3.3 percent to $713 after the online travel agency forecast second-quarter profit would fall below analysts' estimates.
Despite
the declines for the day, both the Dow and the S&P 500 reached
all-time intraday highs - with the Dow touching 15,144.83 and the
S&P 500 reaching 1,635.01.
The market, which had been down
slightly from the opening bell through midday, reversed course and
began to edge higher in early afternoon. Stocks gave up those gains
later in the session.
Limiting the S&P 500's loss, News Corp
shares gained 4.5 percent to $33.29. It reported earnings late
Wednesday that beat expectations while revenue rose 14 percent. Rupert
Murdoch's media company also said it was on track to split off its
slow-growing publishing business by the end of June.
Among other top advancers, Tesla Motors Inc
surged 24.4 percent to $69.40 a day after posting adjusted earnings
that were three times what analysts were expecting as the company sold
more cars than it had initially forecast.
Shares of Barnes & Noble Inc
shot up 24.3 percent to $22.08, after hitting a fresh 52-week high of
$22.25. The stock's sharp advance followed a report by web publication
TechCrunch that Microsoft Corp was considering an offer to acquire all of Nook Media's digital assets for $1 billion. Microsoft shares slipped 1 percent to $32.66.
Both Barnes & Noble
and Tesla Motors have been among favorite stocks to short, and their
gains on Thursday were likely extended by traders who were forced to
cover bets the stocks would fall in order to prevent further losses.
Volume
was roughly 6.4 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange,
the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, matching the average daily closing volume
this year.
Decliners outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by a
ratio of nearly 2 to 1 and on the Nasdaq, about three stocks fell for
every two that rose. - Reuters