Stocks ended slightly lower on Wall Street as a gangbuster two-day rally ran out of gas.
The S&P 500 ended 0.2 percent lower Wednesday after briefly heading into the green late in the day. Its early rally this week was the biggest since the spring of 2020, spurred in part by hopes a softening economy may convince central banks to take it easier on interest rate hikes.
Analysts have said such hopes may be premature. Other major U.S. indexes including the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq also lost ground. Oil prices rose after the OPEC+ cartel ordered production cuts.
On Wednesday:
- The S&P 500 fell 7.65 points, or 0.2 percent, to 3,783.28.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 42.45 points, or 0.1 percent, to 30,273.87.
- The Nasdaq fell 27.77 points, or 0.2 percent, to 11,148.64.
- The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 13.07 points, or 0.7 percent, to 1,762.69.
- The S&P 500 is up 197.66 points, or 5.5 percent.
- The Dow is up 1,548.36 points, or 5.4 percent.
- The Nasdaq is up 573.02 points, or 5.4 percent.
- The Russell 2000 is up 97.98 points, or 5.9 percent.
- The S&P 500 is down 982.90 points, or 20.6 percent.
- The Dow is down 6,064.43 points, or 16.7 percent.
- The Nasdaq is down 4,496.33 points, or 28.7 percent.
- The Russell 2000 is down 482.62 points, or 21.5 percent.