(Updates with details after market close)
* Twitter drops as accounts of the main hacked voices on its platform
* Bank of America falls as profit halves in the second quarter
* American Airlines says demand for air travel slows again
* Netflix falls into extended commerce after report
* Indices: Dow -0.5%, S&P 500 -0.3%, Nasdaq -0.7%
By Noel Randewich
July 16 (Reuters) – The S&P 500 fell on Thursday, lowered by Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc, as high levels of unemployment claims raised concerns about the economic cost of the growing coronavirus cases.
US retail sales rose more than expected in June, but a resurgence in new COVID-19 cases is undermining the fledgling recovery, keeping 32 million Americans on unemployment benefits.
A jump in the virus cases has forced California and other states to close again, raising fears of further damage to businesses and slowing the pace of a Wall Street rally. The S&P 500 is approximately 5% below its February high.
“The economic data shows that there is still a challenge ahead,” said Willie Delwiche, Baird’s investment strategist in Milwaukee. “It is better for Congress to act together and pass another fiscal stimulus.”
S & P’s real estate and technology indices each lost more than 1%, more than any other.
Apple was down 1.2% and Microsoft lost 2%, each weighing more than any other company in the S&P 500.
The S&P 500 has outperformed the Nasdaq by nearly 3 percentage points over the past week, its highest five-day performance over the Nasdaq since the end of March, reflecting a move away from Amazon.com, Microsoft and other major tech companies that have led Wall Street gains in recent months.
“This is an early indication of good signs that money is now flowing from Nasdaq completely overbought to those names that will bode well as the economy begins to find a more solid foundation,” said Andrew Smith, chief investment strategist at Dallas, Texas. Based on Delos Capital Advisors.
Twitter Inc fell 1.1% after hackers accessed its internal systems to hijack some of the platform’s leading voices, including US presidential candidate Joe Biden, reality TV star Kim Kardashian West, former president. American Barack Obama and billionaire Elon Musk and used them to request digital currency.
In extended commerce, Netflix fell 10% after the quarterly video streaming service report.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.5% to end at 26,734.71 points, while the S&P 500 lost 0.34% to 3,215.57.
The Nasdaq compound fell 0.73% to 10,473.83.
Rounding out the earnings reports of the big banks, Bank of America Corp fell 2.7% after its second quarter earnings more than half, while Morgan Stanley rose 2.5% after posting a record quarterly profit.
American Airlines fell 7.4% after sending 25,000 possible license notices to frontline workers and warned that demand for air travel is slowing again.
Tesla Inc declined nearly 3% after its vehicle registrations nearly halved in the U.S. state of California in the second quarter, according to data from a market research firm.
Decreasing issues outnumbered advanced issues on the NYSE by a ratio of 1.26 to 1; on Nasdaq, a 1.48-to-1 ratio favored declines.
The S&P 500 posted 30 new 52-week highs and no new lows; The Nasdaq Composite recorded 76 new highs and 14 new lows.
Volume on the US exchanges was 9.6 billion shares, compared to the 11.7 billion average for the full session in the last 20 trading days. (Additional report by Medha Singh and Devik Jain in Bengaluru Edited by Marguerita Choy)
