Dow closes lower as Wall Street gives up gains in a choppy session

US stocks had opened higher on Tuesday as a rebound looked to emerge after Monday’s massive sell-off. The session however turned choppy as the major indexes fluctuated heavily in mid-morning trading, with Wall Street resuming losses to threaten a fresh decline.

The seesaw continued in afternoon trading to see the benchmark S&P 500 index give up gains to close 0.25% higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had also moved higher in the morning, rising nearly 500 points. However, the index shed the gains late on to close in the negative for a fourth straight day. The Dow ended Tuesday’s session -0.26%.

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Nasdaq led early gains, rallying more than 2.5% amid gains across mega-cap stocks. But the sell-off pressure seen in the last hour of normal trading erased some of the gains for major tech stocks.  

Mega-cap stocks give up gains

Apple Inc gained 1.61% after moving lower in late afternoon trading, while Amazon.com (0.06%) Meta Platforms (0.73%) Alphabet Inc (1.67%) and Microsoft Corp (1.86%) all gave up earlier gains. Tesla Inc gained 1.64%.

Fed’s rate hikes and the fear of recession at least played a huge role in last week’s sell-off, which extended to this week as S&P 500 index plunged below 4,000 for its worst session reading since March last year. Nasdaq had also fallen more than 4% to extend its year-to-date losses to more than 26%.

Inflation, central bank monetary policy and potential impact of fresh Covid infections and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remain the main negative factors.  On Wednesday, the market will have a look at fresh CPI data for the US.