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* Wells Fargo, Citigroup among the biggest obstacles in the S&P 500
* Exxon Mobil weighs S&P, energy sector in regulatory research
* Retail sales fall again in December
* Dow fell 0.34%, S&P 500 fell 0.48%, Nasdaq fell 0.40% (update prices, add comments, add NEW YORK date, change subscription)
By Echo Wang
New York, January 15 (Reuters) – The main Wall Street indices fell on Friday, with the biggest hurdle coming from the big American banks after their earnings reports, while the energy sector was also hampered by a regulatory investigation into Exxon Mobil Corp.
The bank’s S&P 500 index fell 2.8% as the shares of Wells Fargo & Co, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup Inc plunged, although they posted better than expected earnings in the fourth quarter. The banking sector has recovered strongly in recent days.
Wells Fargo, down 7%, was the biggest hurdle for the S&P 500, followed by Exxon Mobil, down 4%.
The main Wall Street indices were set to end the week low, after rising to recent records with bets on a robust fiscal stimulus package and optimism about vaccine distribution.
“Finance and energy have been disappointing … this is taking the entire market down,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at the Independent Advisor Alliance in Charlotte, NC.
“This year is the year for finance, energy, materials, industrials. So if a day comes when they are not leading, it is not good news for the market.”
Also in the minds of investors was the stimulus proposal by US President Joe Biden, unveiled on Thursday.
The $ 1.9 trillion proposal included about $ 1 trillion in direct aid to families.
Four of the top 11 S&P were gaining ground, with the real estate sector as the biggest percentage gainer, with a gain of 1%, while energy fell 3.2%, registering the deepest drop.
At 14h20 ET (1920 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 104.42 points, or 0.34%, to 30,887.1, the S&P 500 lost 18.1 points, or 0.48%, to 3,777.44 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 52.33 points, or 0.4%, to 13,060.30.
Profits for S&P 500 companies are expected to fall 9.5% in the last quarter of 2020 compared to the previous year, but are expected to recover in 2021, with a 16.4% gain projected for the first quarter, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Exxon’s stock fell after a report said the United States Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation into the oil major after a whistleblower’s complaint that the company overvalued a major asset in the country’s shale oil basin. Permian.
Spotify Technology SA fell about 5.9% after Citigroup downgraded its shares to “sell”.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co was up 0.9% after JP Morgan upgraded the business software maker’s shares to “overweight”.
Declining issues outperformed advances on the NYSE by 2.05 to 1; on the Nasdaq, a 2.04 to 1 ratio favored the declines.
The S&P 500 recorded eight new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 158 new highs and five new lows. (Additional reporting by Devik Jain and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; edited by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Maju Samuel)