Wall St. rally extends to 7th straight month
Investors took a breather Tuesday as the month of August came to a close.
The benchmark S&P 500 index turned in another monthly rally - its seventh in a row - for the longest winning streak since 2018 – notching a year-to-date gain of 20 percent.
As for Tuesday's choppy session: The Dow lost 39 points. The S&P 500 dipped 6 points. The Nasdaq lost 6 points as well.
Investors are now looking ahead to the important jobs report due on Friday and possibly toward the end of the year.
Adam Coons is a portfolio manager at Winthrop Capital Management.
"Now we're looking forward to what the economic data telling us going forward and really just positioning portfolio to kind of end the year, because you've got to think in the manner that a lot of portfolio managers had a great return this year with the S&P 500 up 20 percent. So there's not a huge incentive to continue to take risk into the end of the year when, you know, you can close your books today and have a pretty good year."
In stock market action: Zoom had a rough time as investors tuned out. The video conferencing company that rose to fame during the stay-at-home era warned that it is seeing a faster-than-expected drop in demand for its service. The stock got clobbered - losing nearly 17 percent or $17 billion in market value.
South Korea's parliament approved a bill that bans Google Play and the Apple App Store from forcing software developers to use their payment systems, effectively stopping them from charging commissions on in-app purchases. South Korea is the first major economy to make such a move. Shares of Apple fell from the all-time high seen a day before. Alphabet, the parent of Google, saw its stock rise.
Taking a look at the latest economic news: Home price gains hit another record high in June, according to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index.
Separately, consumer confidence tumbled to a six-month low with consumers expressing concern about inflation and the health crisis.
