The S&P 500 hit a record at midday but profit taking in meme stocks hit from there and then slowly spread into broader selling.
Among the bigger names, Lockheed Martin was a loser after Trump threatened defense companies with blocking buybacks unless they increase production. Shares of Caterpillar fell 4% after strengthening earlier this week. Nike hit a three-week high then reversed to fall 3.1% as angst builds around a potential tariff decision on Friday at the Supreme Court.
Financials were losers as well as Bank of America fell 2.8% and Citi declined 1.1%. Both had been early winners this year.
Breadth was fairly wide but there were some winner led by Intel, which is a government backed meme stock, rising as much as 9% and finishing up 6%. Google also scored strong bids as it rose 2.2%, in part because web traffic monitors show a dramatic drop in ChatGPT traffic by 20%, seemingly indicating the eyeballs are migrating to Gemini
