Dow Jones Industrial Average Drops as Oil Stock, Technology Slide - Barron's

Oil Photograph by Mikham

5:30 p.m. It was a quiet day for the stock market—the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the day down just 22.82 points. In fact, it was so quiet it felt like almost nothing happened. But the day could have been a whole lot better if it weren’t for two sectors: Energy and technology.

Consider: The S&P 500 finished the day down 5.99 points, or 0.20%, and most of its sectors did, well, nothing. On the downside, industrials dipped 0.04%, health care slipped 0.12%, and financials declined 0.24%. On the upside, consumer staples ticked up 0.09%, communications services rose 0.15%, utilities advanced 0.24%, materials gained 0.30%, and consumer discretionary finished up 0.41%. Add it up and the market might have finished higher on the day.

Except for tech and energy. The energy sector fell 1.49%, making it the biggest loser on the day. Every stock in the sector, including Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX), was down on the day, except one: Helmerich & Payne (HP), which rose 0.1% and happens to be the smallest stock in the group. Energy’s drop was particularly weird given that oil prices rose 1% to $53.36 per barrel on Wednesday.

Then there was tech. It dropped less than half as much as the energy but is five times the size. And while most of tech was down, including Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT), it was the software and chip stocks that took the brunt of the selling. Salesforce.com (CRM) fell 3.78%, while Adobe (ADBE) dropped 2.39% after getting downgraded by Citigroup. Chip stocks Micron Technology (MU) and Lam Research (LRCX) fell 2.39% and 3.01% respectively.

Despite today’s drop, breadth was just fine. “[We] thought it was interesting that in spite of lower indices, there were more advancing issues than declining ones,” writes Stephen Todd of Todd Market Forecast.

So we’ll try again tomorrow.

Markets Now is a quick take on what’s happening with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other major market indexes. Don’t forget to check out the rest of Barron’s markets coverage.

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