US Stock Indexes Sag as a Two-Day Rally Peters Out<br />He also said that he thinks the U. S. government will "end up probably terminating" the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada<br />and Mexico, though he also said that he has yet to make up his mind.<br />NEW YORK — Stocks retreated on Wednesday and gave back some of their gains from a day<br />earlier, when the Standard & Poor’s 500 index had one of its best days of the year.<br />It gave a profit outlook for the year that fell short of Wall Street’s forecast, and its stock fell $2.81, or 3.7 percent, to $73.01.<br />The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 8.47 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,444.04, relinquishing about a third of its big gain from Tuesday.<br />In a speech late Tuesday, President Donald Trump said<br />that "if we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall" that he wants on the border between Mexico and the United States.<br />Lowe’s, the home-improvement retailer, also dragged down the S&P 500 after it reported profit<br />and revenue for the latest quarter that were weaker than analysts expected.<br />She said she noticed CEOs talking a lot about their hopes for tax reform or infrastructure spending earlier<br />this year, when companies were reporting their results for the January-through-March quarter.<br />In overseas stock markets, the French CAC 40 fell 0.3 percent, Germany’s DAX dropped 0.5 percent and the FTSE 100 in London was close to flat.<br />The Dow Jones industrial average fell 87.80 points, or 0.4 percent, to 21,812.09, and the Nasdaq composite lost 19.07, or 0.3 percent, to 6,278.41.
