Wall Street closes avalanches in Apple stocks, bank stocks

July 18 (Reuters) – Wall Street ended lower on Monday after bank shares erased earlier gains and Apple (AAPL.O) shares fell on a report saying the company plans to slow growth in hiring and spending next year.

After announcing solid gains to start the session after earnings from Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N), the S&P financial sector (.SPSY) weakened towards the end.

Apple shares reversed the price to close 2.1% to $ 147.1 in a Bloomberg report which said the company plans to slow employment and spending growth next year in some units to cope with a potential economic downturn. read more

Goldman Sachs rose 2.5% when it reported a smaller-than-expected decline of 48% in second-quarter earnings, helped by strengths in fixed income trading.

Concerns about a larger interest rate increase of one percentage point at the end of July eased after comments from Fed officials last week that decision-makers could stick to an increase of 75 basis points. read more

“It’s very difficult to maintain upward momentum,” said Ross Mayfield, an investment strategy analyst at Baird in Louisville, Kentucky. “And it’s a kind of story about bear markets.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 215.65 points, or 0.69%, to 31,072.61, the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 32.31 points, or 0.84%, to 3,830.85 and Nasdaq Composite fell (.92IC. 0.81% to 11,360.05.

Nine of the 11 major sectors in the S&P 500 lost ground, with healthcare (.SPXHC) and tools (.SPLRCU) suffering the largest percentage decline, while energy (.SPNY) took the biggest gain.

Earnings from large technology companies next week will be closely monitored, after their shares came under enormous selling pressure throughout much of this year.

Among other technology stocks, Google’s mother Alphabet fell 2.5%. IBM fell 1.3 percent.

Volume on US stock exchanges was 10.63 billion shares, compared to the average of 12.15 billion for the entire session over the last 20 trading days.

Progress issues outperformed the NYSE by a ratio of 1.20 to 1; on the Nasdaq favored a ratio of 1.06 to 1 declines.

The S&P 500 posted a new 52-week high and 31 new lows; Nasdaq Composite recorded 30 new highs and 78 new lows.

Reporting by Echo Wang in New York; Additional reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal, Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Edited by Shounak Dasgupta, Anil D’Silva and Deepa Babington

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