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Consumer confidence rose unexpectedly in March
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Alibaba shares jump
(Updates to close)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
March 28 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks ended lower on Tuesday
as investors weighed comments from a top U.S. regulator on
struggling banks and sold shares of technology-related names
after their recent strong run.
Michael Barr, the Federal Reserve's top banking regulator,
told a Senate panel that Silicon Valley Bank did a "terrible"
job of managing risk before its collapse.
Shares of Apple and Microsoft along with
other technology-related shares were among the biggest drags on
the S&P 500.
"It's a little bit of a follow-through from yesterday's
pullback in tech stocks. You're seeing a little bit of
profit-taking," said Michael James, managing director of equity
trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles. "Some of the
enthusiasm is waning a little bit."
The S&P 500 technology index extended recent
declines Tuesday, but remains up sharply for the quarter.
The KBW regional banking index was down on the day,
while shares of First Citizens BancShares Inc were up
slightly, a day after the stock rose more than 50% after it said
it would acquire the deposits and loans of Silicon Valley Bank.
According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 lost 6.17
points, or 0.16%, to end at 3,971.36 points, while the Nasdaq
Composite lost 52.27 points, or 0.44%, to 11,716.56. The
Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 38.05 points, or 0.12%,
to 32,394.03.
Higher Treasury yields also weighed on tech shares. Yields
have climbed from six-months lows hit Friday.
Early in the day, a survey showed U.S. consumer confidence
unexpectedly increased in March, but also that Americans are
becoming a bit anxious about the labor market.
With the first quarter's end approaching, investors are
thinking about upcoming quarterly results. Strategists said that
as lenders report quarterly results from next month, the market
will learn more details about the health of banks following the
collapse of some big regional lenders that fanned fears of a
sector-wide contagion.
Alibaba Group Holding jumped after the company said it plans to split its business into six main units covering e-commerce, media and the cloud. (Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; additional reporting by Shubham Batra, Amruta Khandekar, Sruthi Shankar and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza, Vinay Dwivedi and Aurora Ellis)
