*
Consumer confidence rose unexpectedly in March
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Alibaba shares jump
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Indexes: Dow down 0.1%, S&P 500 down 0.2%, Nasdaq down
0.5%
(Updates close with prices, volume)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
March 28 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks ended slightly 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 ended down and 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 was down 0.5% on
Tuesday, extending this week's declines, but remains up sharply
for the quarter.
The KBW regional banking index was down 0.2% on the
day. 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.
Bank stocks have sold off sharply in the wake of problems at
Silicon Valley and other banks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 37.83 points,
or 0.12%, to 32,394.25, the S&P 500 lost 6.26 points, or
0.16%, to 3,971.27 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped
52.76 points, or 0.45%, to 11,716.08.
"The prospect of stricter regulations for banks with
deposits above $100 billion is raising the anxiety level for
those that are perceived currently to be struggling," James
said.
Treasury yields edged higher, also weighing on tech-focused
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 quarter end approaching, investors are looking
forward to upcoming bank results, which may give them more
details about the health of the sector following the collapse of
Silicon Valley and Signature Bank.
Alibaba Group Holding jumped 14.3% after the
company said it plans to split its business into six main units
covering e-commerce, media and the cloud.
After the closing bell, shares of Micron Technology Inc were up about 1%. It forecast third-quarter revenue in
line with Wall Street expectations. Micron closed down 0.9% in
the regular session.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.43-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.28-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 6 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 40 new highs and 153 new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 9.66 billion shares, compared
with the 12.75 billion average for the full session over the
last 20 trading days.
(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)
