The Dow was trading sideways on Tuesday.
The blue-chip index was back down 32 points, or 0.1%, after moving in and out of positive territory. Of the 30 Dow stocks, 17 were falling.
The S&P 500 was hovering slightly above breakeven. The Nasdaq Composite was up 0.3%.
There wasn’t much going on on Wall Street as investors hoped the index could string together another day of gains.
The latest update on consumer confidence marked the fourth month a row that it declined.
“Over the last several weeks we’ve seen evidence that whatever froth there was in terms of market sentiment, bullish sentiment has been wrung out,” writes Bespoke Investment Group co-founder Paul Hickey. “The latest example came in today’s release of Consumer Confidence from the Conference Board. Not only did overall confidence fall sharply (the headline index declined from 100.1 down to 94.2), but the percentage of consumers expecting higher and lower stock prices both saw large shifts.”
