Wall Street fell broadly yesterday, with US stocks and the dollar lower after the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it would probe additional e-mails related to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server while secretary of state.
The dollar slipped against major currencies, including the Euro and the yen, while the Mexican peso plunged to a three-week low.
“The market turned south the minute the headline hit the tape that the FBI is all of a sudden looking at (Hillary Clinton’s) emails again,” said Ken Polcari, director of the NYSE floor division at O’Neil Securities in New York.
“The fact they are looking again just raises the prospect that once again they might find something, so the market turned south because it is expecting a Clinton win,” he said.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 20.04 points, or 0.11 per cent, to 18,189.72, while the S&P 500 lost 4.44 points, or 0.21 per cent, to 2,128.6 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 19.76 points, or 0.38 per cent, to 5,196.21.
Stocks and government debt yields had been higher, cheered by stronger-than-expected growth in the world’s biggest economy that boosted bets on an imminent US interest rate increase, while oil extended losses amid a persisting global glut. The yield on benchmark 10-year Treasury notes slipped briefly after the FBI news but later flattened to 1.8486 per cent.
Oil prices were set for their biggest weekly losses in six weeks on investor doubts over Opec’s planned output cut and ahead of US rig count data that has steadily increased in the last few months.
Brent crude was down 1.04 per cent, or 81 cents, at $49.66 a barrel at 2pm (1800 GMT), and US crude was 2.05 per cent, or $1.01, lower at $48.70.
The US dollar reversed course, dropping 0.57 per cent against a basket of major currencies. It fell 0.68 to 104.61 against the yen after earlier touching a three-month high of 105.50.
The Mexican peso also plunged on the FBI news. The dollar surged about one per cent against the peso to a three-week high of 19.1002 pesos.
Earlier in the day, an estimate of US second-quarter gross domestic product showed annualised economic growth of 2.9 per cent, the fastest rate in two years. However, the boost came largely from a recovery in inventories and a jump in agricultural exports after poor soy harvests in Argentina and Brazil this year benefited sales by American exporters.
Meanwhile, business investment in equipment contracted for a fourth straight quarter and personal consumption growth slowed to 2.1 per cent from 4.3 per cent.