NEW YORK — With little news to drive trading, major market indexes drifted mostly lower in a listless day of trading Tuesday. Bond prices fell, driving a benchmark interest rate to its high for the year, and crude oil jumped back above $60 a barrel.
John Canally, an investment strategist at LPL Financial, expects the market to coast until the Federal Reserve meets next week. “Basically, we’re in a waiting period for the Fed,” he said. “Today is probably what you can expect for the rest of the week: a lack of direction.”
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index picked up 0.87 of a point, a sliver of a percent, to finish at 2,080.15.
The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 2.51 points, less than 0.1 percent, to 17,764.04, while the Nasdaq composite lost 7.76 points, or 0.2 percent, to 5,013.87.
The major indexes have lost ground in recent weeks as investors speculated over the Federal Reserve’s next move. Many think an improving economy will push the Fed to raise its benchmark interest rate this year for the first time since the Great Recession. A solid jobs report Friday suggested that the economy has started to recover from its winter slump.
Prices for U.S. government bonds dropped Tuesday, sending the yield on the 10-year Treasury note to a new high for the year, 2.44 percent. Signs that the economy has started to shake off its winter slump have driven long-term interest rates up over the past two months.
In other trading, United Natural Foods, a supplier to Whole Food Markets and other stores, slumped 5 percent after it posted results that fell short of analysts’ targets late Monday. It also cut its full-year forecast for profits. The company’s stock dropped $2.92 to $60.74.
Major stock markets in Europe extended their slump. Germany’s DAX slipped 0.6 percent, and France’s CAC 40 lost 0.2 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 finished with a loss of 0.5 percent.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 sank 1.8 percent. China’s Shanghai Composite shed 0.4 percent, while Hang Seng in Hong Kong fell 1.1 percent.
