U.S. stocks fell on Thursday, hurt by drops for midsized banks as worries flare about the loans they’ve made.
Another bank, Western Alliance Bancorp, dropped 10.8% after saying it has sued a borrower, alleging fraud. It also said it’s standing by its financial forecasts given for 2025.
Thursday’s swings on Wall Street, where the Dow bounced from an early gain of 169 points to an afternoon loss of 472, fit the pattern of the week for stocks. They’ve been shaky since the end of last week, when President Donald Trump shattered a monthslong calm in the U.S. stock market by threatening much higher tariffs on China.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 41.99 points to 6,629.07. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 301.07 to 45,952.24, and the Nasdaq composite sank 107.54 to 22,562.54.
A barrel of U.S. crude gave up an early gain to drop 1.4% to $57.46. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 1.4% to $61.06 per barrel.
In stock markets abroad, indexes climbed across much of Asia and Europe.
In the bond market, Treasury yields dropped as investors herded toward investments considered safer. The yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to 3.97% from 4.05% late Wednesday.
Gold also rose in the hunt for safer investments. It climbed 2.5% to $4,304.60 per ounce, bringing its stunning gain for the year so far to roughly 63%.
A report in the morning said manufacturing activity in the mid-Atlantic region is unexpectedly shrinking. It’s one of the few windows into the economy that the Federal Reserve has been getting recently as it tries to figure out whether high inflation or the weak job market should be the bigger concern for the economy.
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AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.
