The services sector contracted in May for the first time in nearly a year, while businesses paid higher input prices, a reminder that the economy was still at risk of slowing growth and rising inflation. Early gains in the S&P 500 evaporated toward the close and trading volume was relatively light.
“Tariff impacts are likely elevating prices paid by services sector companies,” said Jeffrey Roach, chief economist for LPL Financial.
The ADP National Employment Report showed U.S. private employers in May added the fewest number of workers in more than two years. Investors await Friday’s nonfarm-payrolls data for more signs on how trade uncertainty is affecting the U.S. labor market.
Washington doubled tariffs on imported steel and aluminum to 50%, and Wednesday was also Trump’s deadline for trading partners to make their best offers to avoid other punishing import levies from taking effect in early July.
Investors focused on tariff negotiations between Washington and trading partners, with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping expected to speak sometime this week as tensions simmer between the world’s two biggest economies. “If we can’t get to an agreement on China, the tariff battle will be a headline issue for many months to come and will have an impact on both domestic and international economies,” said Phil Blancato, CEO of Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Management. May saw the biggest monthly increases for the S&P 500 index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq since November 2023, thanks to a softening of Trump’s harsh trade stance and upbeat earnings reports.
The S&P 500 remains more than 2% below record highs touched in February.
Barclays joined a slew of brokerages in raising its year-end price target for the S&P 500, pointing to easing trade uncertainty and expectations of normalized earnings growth in 2026.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 91.90 points, or 0.22%, to 42,427.74, the S&P 500 gained 0.44 points, or 0.01%, to 5,970.81 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 61.53 points, or 0.32%, to 19,460.49.
Shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise rose 0.8% as demand for artificial-intelligence servers and hybrid cloud segment helped second-quarter revenue and profit beat estimates.
GlobalFoundries rose 2.3% after the chip manufacturer announced plans to increase investments to $16 billion.
Shares of the fourth-largest U.S. bank Wells Fargo ended 0.4% lower, although they briefly hit a three-month high after the Federal Reserve lifted a longstanding $1.95 trillion cap on its assets.
Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf told Reuters he expects the bank to grow in all businesses including wealth, commercial and investment banking and credit cards, but not mortgages.
Tesla fell 3.5% as the electric-vehicle maker’s sales dropped for the fifth straight month in big European markets.
Shares of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike slumped 5.8% after it forecast quarterly revenue below estimates.
Dollar Tree dropped 8% as the discount store operator forecast second-quarter adjusted profit could fall as much as 50% from a year ago due to tariff-driven volatility.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was relatively light, with 14.5 billion shares traded, compared to an average of 17.8 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.3-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 223 new highs and 45 new lows on the NYSE.
On the Nasdaq, advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.18-to-1 ratio.
The S&P 500 posted 23 new 52-week highs and no new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 84 new highs and 35 new lows.
