NEW YORK — A disappointing report on services industries Wednesday halted a two-day advance in the stock market.
The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 26 points after jumping 230 points in the first two days of the week.
The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index posted a steeper drop, while the Nasdaq composite index was little-changed.
The report on services businesses, which make up the biggest slice of the U.S. economy, reminded investors that a recovery will be slow.
The Institute for Supply Management said its index of service activity rose to 50.5 in January from a revised 49.8 in December.
The January reading was below the level of 51 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had been expecting. Any number above 50 signals growth.
The weaker-than-expected activity in service companies chilled enthusiasm about a report that private employers cut fewer jobs than expected last month. The news on jobs from ADP, a payroll company, comes ahead of the government’s January employment report Friday. It is expected to show that employers added 5,000 jobs in January but that unemployment edged up to 10.1 percent from 10 percent.
ADP said employers cut 22,000 nonfarm, private jobs last month.
That was the best showing since employment started to weaken in February 2008.
A reduced forecast from Pfizer Inc. dragged health care stocks lower. Meanwhile, bank stocks fell after PNC Financial Services Group Inc. said it would repay $7.6 billion in bailout funds to the U.S. government. Traders grew concerned that other regional banks would face pressure to follow suit.
The Dow fell 26.30, 0.3 percent, to 10,270.55. The S&P 500 index fell 6.04, 0.6 percent, to 1,097.28, while the Nasdaq rose 0.85, less than 0.1 percent, to 2,190.91.
The zigzag in Toyota’s stock was the latest reminder that events in Washington are high on investors’ list of concerns. Worries that tougher laws, including President Barack Obama’s proposal to restrict banks’ trading activity, would hurt profits helped drive the market lower last month.
“We have a lot of problems to get through, and every once in a while Washington throws an incendiary device into the room,” said William Rutherford, president of Rutherford Investment Management in Portland, Ore. “Talk about tax increases and more government regulation is putting a lot of pressure on the markets.”
