NEW YORK — Big banks weighed on the stock market Wednesday, tugging major indexes back from record highs. ADVERTISING NEW YORK — Big banks weighed on the stock market Wednesday, tugging major indexes back from record highs. Regulators from the
NEW YORK — Big banks weighed on the stock market Wednesday, tugging major indexes back from record highs.
Regulators from the U.S., Switzerland and the U.K. fined five major banks a total of $3.4 billion for conspiring to manipulate foreign-currency trading. The news drove down bank stocks in Europe and the U.S. JPMorgan Chase fell more than 1 percent, the biggest drop in the Dow Jones industrial average.
“The fines from the watchdogs took some of the wind out of the market,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital Management. But a slight dip following five days of record highs “is actually healthy,” he said. “That’s the sign of a good bull market. Going straight up every day would be reckless.”
The Standard &Poor’s 500 index slipped 1.43 point, a sliver of a percent, to end at 2,038.25.
The Dow lost 2.70 points to 17,612.20, while the Nasdaq composite rose 14.58 points, or 0.3 percent, to 4,675.13.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 closed at a record high for the fifth straight day.
Major markets in Europe closed with bigger losses. France’s CAC 40 dropped 1.5 percent, while Germany’s DAX lost 1.7 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 sank 0.2 percent.
Back in the U.S., J.M. Smucker dropped 4 percent, the worst loss in the S&P 500. The maker of Jif peanut butter, fruit jams, and other products trimmed its full-year profit forecast, saying higher prices for Folgers coffee have hurt sales. J.M. Smucker’s stock fell $3.70 to $100.38.
Susquehanna Bancshares soared 33 percent on news that the commercial bank BB&T agreed to buy Susquehanna for roughly $2.5 billion. The deal, which still needs approval from shareholders and regulators, would give BB&T a wide reach across Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic states. Susquehanna Bancshares jumped $3.22 to $13.12. BB&T fell 66 cents, or 2 percent, to $37.67.
In a week light on major economic reports, investors were looking ahead to the government’s monthly look on retail sales, due out Friday. Wall Street’s economists expect the Commerce Department to say sales inched up 0.2 percent last month. Sales fell in September.
