A late-afternoon rally, triggered by a rebound in beaten-down oil prices, was not enough to lift U.S. stocks out of negative territory on Wednesday. The key benchmarks closed with losses for the fourth straight session.
The S&P 500 SPX, -0.58% declines were broad-based, with eight of 10 main industry groups ending lower. Financials and materials led losses, while utilities rallied. Beaten-down energy sector stocks swung from a 2% loss to end with a gain of 0.1%.
The U.S. dollar traded flat against the euro, yen and pound Wednesday after dismal December retail-sales data caused investors to second-guess the strength of the U.S. economy, kicking off a session of choppy trade.
After hitting a nine-year low early Wednesday, the euro EURUSD, -0.12% turned positive against the dollar after the Commerce Department said retail sales dropped by a seasonally adjusted 0.9% last month to mark the biggest decline in nearly a year.
The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, +0.11% , a measure of the dollar’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six rival currencies, was down 0.22% to 92.1030.
The dollar staged a similar recovery against the yen. It recovered to ¥117.3320, after the buck fell USDJPY, +0.36% to ¥116.1150, its lowest level since mid-November.
The pound GBPUSD, -0.01% traded at $1.5232, off its session high of $1.5270. It traded at $1.52 Tuesday afternoon.
Natural gas also rose on Wednesday, with the February contract NGG15, +0.90% up 29 cents, or 9.9%, to finish at $3.2330 per million British thermal units. That was natural gas’s largest one-day percentage increase since Feb. 19, 2014.
