NEW YORK — Wall Street pulled back again Tuesday in muted trading ahead of Christmas, as another round of reports showed further deterioration in the housing market and the broader economy.
The Dow Jones industrial average finished lower for the fifth straight day, falling 100 points.
Tuesday’s gloomy data was hardly surprising to jaded investors.
And trading volume has been light this week, which tends to skew the market’s movements; many traders are on vacation for Christmas, and the market will close early today, at 11 a.m. MST.
“It is a very quiet news week, and much of it has already been priced into the market,” said Ryan Larson, head of equity trading at Voyageur Asset Management.
The reports offered Wall Street no reason to be upbeat, however, and the concern remains that the economy will keep weakening well into the new year. That anxiety is sapping the hope for a year-end rally in the Dow, which is has fallen 36.5 percent since 2008 began.
The Commerce Department reiterated Tuesday that third- quarter gross domestic product, a measure of the economy that tallies the value of goods and services, fell at an annual rate of 0.5 percent.
The government also said sales of new homes fell in November to the slowest pace in nearly 18 years, while prices of new homes dropped by the biggest amount in eight months.
Home resales keep dropping as well.
The Dow Jones industrial average shed 100.28, or 1.18 percent, to 8,419.49. The Dow is well off the multiyear lows it tumbled to in mid-November, but it is still down more than 400 points, or 4.6 percent, for December. Typically, December is one of the best months for the stock market.
Broader indexes also declined Tuesday. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 8.47, or 0.97 percent, to 863.16. The Nasdaq composite index fell 10.81, or 0.71 percent, to 1,521.54. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 6.43, or 1.35 percent, to 468.64.
