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* Rising crude prices boost energy stocks
* Durable goods, pending home sales surprise to the upside
* Robinhood rises on Goldman Sachs upgrade
* Indexes down: Dow 0.31%, S&P 0.39%, Nasdaq 0.76%
NEW YORK, June 27 (Reuters) - Wall Street lost ground on
Monday, with few catalysts to inspire much conviction as
investors approach the midway point of a year in which stocks
have been battered by heightened inflation worries and
tightening Fed policy.
The major U.S. stock indexes were last modestly lower after
oscillating through much of the session, with weakness in
interest rate sensitive megacaps such as Amazon.com,
Microsoft Corp and Alphabet Inc providing the
heaviest drag.
"It's still very much a recovery market, after the sell-off
we've seen," said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview
Asset Management in Chicago. "I'm not sure the market has found
the floor but ...(that) will depend on how aggressively the Fed
raises (interest) rates, and whether inflation declines or not."
All three indexes appear set to notch two straight quarterly
declines for the first time since 2015. They are also on course
to post losses for June, which would mark three consecutive down
months for the tech-heavy Nasdaq, its longest losing streak
since 2015.
Rising oil prices helped put energy stocks
out front, with economically sensitive smallcaps and
semiconductors and transports also outperforming
the broader market.
Economic data surprised to the upside, with new orders for
durable goods and pending home sales beating expectations and
adding credence to U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's
assertion that the economy is robust enough to withstand the
central bank's attempts to rein in decades-high inflation
without sliding into recession.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 98.68 points,
or 0.31%, to 31,402, the S&P 500 lost 15.22 points, or
0.39%, to 3,896.52 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped
88.69 points, or 0.76%, to 11,518.93.
Among the 11 major sectors of the S&P 500, energy stocks
were the clear winners, while communication services
suffering the largest percentage losses.
With several weeks to go until second-quarter reporting
commences, 130 S&P 500 companies have pre-announced. Of those,
45 have been positive and 77 have been negative, resulting in a
negative/positive ratio of 1.7 stronger than the first quarter
but weaker than a year ago, according to Refinitiv data.
Shares of retail stock trading platform Robinhood Markets
rose 4.6% after media reports said Goldman Sachs
changed the stock to "neutral" from "sell".
But the broker double downgrade of cryptocurrency exchange
Coinbase Global Inc's shares to "sell" from "buy", sent
its stock sliding 9.9%.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.29-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.09-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted one new 52-week high and 29 new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 21 new highs and 71 new lows.
(Reporting by Stephen Culp; additional reporting by Shreyashi
Sanyal and Amruta Khandekar in Bengaluru; editing by Grant
McCool)