NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks retreated Monday, ending a four-day streak of record closes for the Dow, as nervousness over the holiday shopping season hit shares of leading retailers.
Analysts said anxiety about the “Black Friday” launch of the holiday season, coupled with profit-taking, prompted losses following the big stock rally in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidential election win November 8.
“This is basically profit taking,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial. “We’ve been high for a lot of days, so I think it is just a little a bit of a pause.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.3 percent to 19,097.90.
The broad-based S&P 500 fell 0.5 percent to 2,201.72, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index lost 0.6 percent at 5,368.81.
Adobe reported that online sales jumped on Black Friday by nearly 18 percent to $5.3 billion. But analysts described disappointing buzz around weekend traffic at stores.
“There’s some chatter that perhaps it could have been more robust,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities.
Amazon lost 1.7 percent, Best Buy 2.7 percent, Macy’s 2.3 percent and Target 1.1 percent.
Banking shares, which have enjoyed big gains in the wake of Trump’s election, fell back. JPMorgan Chase lost 0.7 percent, Bank of America 2.6 percent and Citigroup 2.3 percent.
Google parent Alphabet rose 0.9 percent following a Morgan Stanley report that recommended buying shares in part due to expectations of strong sales for its Pixel smartphone.
