NEW YORK — Wall Street ended an erratic session Wednesday with a lopsided loss as blue chips fell on investors’ concerns over the health of financial companies and high-tech stocks fared better on news from the semiconductor sector. The Dow Jones industrials fell more than 100 points, but the other major indexes finished with single-digit losses.
The market battled all the forces that have pummeled it in recent weeks: weak economic data, the price of oil and the credit crisis. Investors started the day disappointed by the government’s July retail-sales report, and a jump in oil prices further dampened the mood; the financial sector was pulled lower by lingering uneasiness over the prospect of more credit-related losses at banks and brokerages.
The Commerce Department said retail sales slipped 0.1 percent as rising prices helped offset the effect of economic-stimulus payments to U.S. households. Excluding a big drop in sales of autos, retail sales rose 0.4 percent. But even on that basis, it was the weakest showing in five months.
Wall Street had expected sales to remain flat after a minor increase in June. The report followed a warning from department-store bellwether Macy’s that its full-year profits would fall short of expectations because of slower sales.
The retail numbers pointed to a consumer who remains uneasy about spending. And because consumers’ spending accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, the fear on Wall Street is that the nation is in for a prolonged period of slow or no growth.
The advance in oil prices also tinged investor sentiment, raising the prospect of higher inflation that could further cut into consumers’ ability to spend. Light, sweet crude rose $2.99 to $116 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after the government said U.S. crude supplies fell unexpectedly last week.
Jim Smigiel, head of the investment-strategy group at SEI, said Wall Street’s erratic trading is likely to continue as investors seem to latch on to any scrap of insight into where the economy is headed, “trying to guess what is positive and what is negative.
“The way through this is to try to look at everything a little bit further down the road and just buckle up, because it’s going to be a pretty wild ride.”
