*
Consumer confidence rose unexpectedly in March
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Alibaba shares jump
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Indexes: Dow down 0.3%, S&P 500 down 0.5%, Nasdaq down
0.9%
(Updates to late afternoon trading, adds NEW YORK dateline)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
March 28 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were lower in afternoon
trading on Tuesday, led by a nearly 1% decline in the Nasdaq as
higher Treasury yields hit technology-related shares.
Shares of Apple and Microsoft along with
other technology-related shares, which tend to be the most
negatively affected by rising yields, weighed the most on the
S&P 500.
Yields have climbed from six-months lows hit Friday as
investors have been cautiously optimistic that stress in the
banking sector following some recent regional bank failures may
be subsiding.
Shares of First Citizens BancShares Inc were up
about 2.2% on Tuesday, a day after the stock rose more than 50%
after it said it would acquire the deposits and loans of Silicon
Valley Bank.
U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly increased in March,
according to a survey, which also showed Americans are becoming
a bit anxious about the labor market.
The rise in yields "is causing a little bit of cautiousness
in the market," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at
Spartan Capital Securities in New York, while data suggested
"consumers are not too cheerful about rates going up and the
prospects of a recession."
Investors also paid close attention to comments in the first
congressional hearing into the collapse of the two U.S. regional
lenders. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers pressed the
Federal Reserve's top banking regulator on whether the central
bank should have been more aggressive in its oversight of
Silicon Valley Bank.
"If the market thinks there's not a banking crisis and
that's in the rear view mirror, that would mean the Fed is able
to hold rates higher for longer," said Irene Tunkel, chief U.S.
equity strategist at BCA Research.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 108.04 points,
or 0.33%, to 32,324.04, the S&P 500 lost 19.76 points, or
0.50%, to 3,957.77 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped
105.51 points, or 0.9%, to 11,663.33.
The KBW regional banking index was down on the day.
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 14.1% after the
company said it plans to split its business into six main units
covering e-commerce, media and the cloud.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.04-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.53-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 6 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 30 new highs and 124 new lows.
(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)
