Investing.com – U.S. equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Oil & Gas, Utilities and Technology sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in NYSE, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.27%, while the S&P 500 index fell 0.17%, and the NASDAQ Composite index declined 0.22%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were Merck & Company Inc (NYSE:MRK), which rose 1.40% or 0.79 points to trade at 57.04 at the close. EI du Pont de Nemours and Company (NYSE:DD) added 0.77% or 0.52 points to end at 68.07 and Wal-Mart Stores Inc (NYSE:WMT) was up 0.41% or 0.29 points to 71.75 in late trade.
Biggest losers included McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD), which lost 1.64% or 2.01 points to trade at 120.62 in late trade. Visa Inc (NYSE:V) declined 1.03% or 0.80 points to end at 76.53 and Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) shed 0.92% or 0.95 points to 102.29.
The top performers on the S&P 500 were Newfield Exploration Company (NYSE:NFX) which rose 4.92% to 42.88, CSRA Inc (NYSE:CSRA) which was up 2.83% to settle at 24.37 and Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) which gained 2.68% to close at 38.74.
The worst performers were Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE) which was down 5.73% to 94.01 in late trade, HP Inc (NYSE:HPQ) which lost 5.40% to settle at 12.61 and Southwestern Energy Company (NYSE:SWN) which was down 4.74% to 13.47 at the close.
The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were KBS Fashion Group Ltd (NASDAQ:KBSF) which rose 157.43% to 0.6500, SkyPeople Fruit Juice Inc (NASDAQ:SPU) which was up 55.81% to settle at 2.6800 and Epirus Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:EPRS) which gained 49.45% to close at 0.665.
The worst performers were Immune Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:IMNP) which was down 16.84% to 0.4499 in late trade, Covenant Transportation Group Inc (NASDAQ:CVTI) which lost 16.52% to settle at 18.340 and Delcath Systems Inc (NASDAQ:DCTH) which was down 15.75% to 0.2611 at the close.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 1903 to 1381 and 42 ended unchanged; on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, 1491 fell and 1025 advanced, while 100 ended unchanged on the New York Stock Exchange.
The CBOE Volatility Index, which measures the implied volatility of S&P 500 options, was up 14.45% to 21.15 a new 3-month high.
In commodities trading, Gold for August delivery was down 0.21% or 2.65 to $1269.85 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in August fell 1.60% or 0.80 to hit $49.05 a barrel, while the August Brent oil contract fell 1.54% or 0.78 to trade at $49.84 a barrel.
EUR/USD was up 0.47% to 1.1294, while USD/JPY fell 0.32% to 104.42.
The US Dollar Index was down 0.34% at 93.84.