Wall Street suffered a major loss across all three indexes to start trading the week of Dec. 17. The S&P 500 closed at its lowest level in 14 months, losing nearly $3.4 trillion in value since September. The index is down over 3% year to date, with reports from the Bank of International Settlements expecting additional sell-offs next year.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 2.11%, and the Nasdaq Composite also fell 2.27%.
Despite major declines on the S&P 500, three companies were able to weather the storm and post positive gains on the day.
AO Smith (AOS), manufacturing company, led the leaders with a 2.34% rise on the day. An increase across trading platforms, the company has outperformed expectations in three out of the past four quarters, and the company’s sales in China are increasing.
Price-earnings ratios do remain a concern at 21.50, indicating high expectations for the company in the future.
Stanley Black & Decker Inc. (SWK) rose 1.48% on the day and Hartford Financial Services Group (HIG) rose 1.26%. The three stocks led the gainers on the S&P 500 despite any real, tangible news surrounding their gains.
Xerox Corp. (XRX) led to losses for the day, with the company’s stock falling 12.92%. The stock’s plummet wasn’t related to any news on Monday. Rather, it is weathering a downgrade by Moody’s Investors Service to Ba1 from a Baa3.
The stock has been downgraded to “junk” as demand for copy and printing services slows. The company’s revenue remains uncertain as a result.
Twitter (TWTR, Financial) also fell 6.8% for the day. The social media company’s stock is down on the news that its platform had a bug, which would leak phone number country codes and whether or not accounts had been locked to potential hackers.
The bug would have severe ramifications on accounts for whistleblowers and political dissidents, who use Twitter as a platform. Hackers could use the bug to determine the country of origin for an account. Saudi Arabia and China sent a large number of queries through the platform, and it’s possible that there may have been “state-sponsored actors” involved.
The issue was found on Nov. 15 and fixed within a day. The social media company did contact the government officials to notify them of the potential threat. Twitter has contacted all users who may have been impacted.
Summary: The author has no stake in the listed equities.
