U.S. stocks fall amid stimulus proposal, weak retail sales
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E-mail Xinhua, January 16, 2021
NEW YORK, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Wall Street's major averages slipped on Friday as investors pored through President-elect Joe Biden's proposed COVID-19 aid plan and the December U.S. retail sales data.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased 177.26 points, or 0.57 percent, to end at 30,814.26. The S&P 500 fell 27.29 points, or 0.72 percent, to 3,768.25. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 114.14 points, or 0.87 percent, to 12,998.50.
Seven of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors finished in red, with energy down 4.03 percent, leading the laggards. Real estate rose 1.46 percent, the best-performing group.
U.S.-listed Chinese companies traded mostly lower with six of the top 10 stocks by weight in the S&P U.S. Listed China 50 index ending the day on a downbeat note.
Biden on Thursday unveiled a 1.9-trillion-U.S.-dollar COVID-19 relief bill, which includes another round of direct payments to individuals, aid for state and local governments, increased unemployment benefits, as well as more funding for testing and vaccine distribution.
"Just as we are in the midst of a dark winter of this pandemic as cases, hospitalizations, and deaths spike at record levels, there is real pain overwhelming the real economy," the president-elect said in a speech in Wilmington, Delaware on Thursday night.
Biden's proposal includes direct payments of 1,400 dollars per person for working families, which is on top of the 600-dollar checks approved in the 900-billion-dollar relief package, bringing the total relief to 2,000 dollars.
The United States has registered more than 23.4 million confirmed COVID-19 cases with related deaths exceeding 390,000 as of Friday afternoon, showed a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
On the economic front, U.S. retail sales slipped 0.7 percent in December, the Commerce Department reported on Friday. The November data was revised down to show sales declining 1.4 percent instead of 1.1 percent as previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales unchanged in December. Enditem
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