US stocks fell slightly on Tuesday in another quiet day as hesitant investors remained on the sidelines as a slow summer winds down.
Shares of the candy company Hershey plunged after it walked away from a merger proposal, and Apple slipped after the company was hit with a large tax bill in Europe.
Investors continue to wait to see whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates later this year. The next key piece of data is coming on Friday with the August jobs report.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 48.69 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 18,454.30. The S&P 500 index fell 4.26 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 2,176.12 and the Nasdaq composite fell 9.34 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 5,222.99.
Bank stocks were among the few gainers as investors continued to interpret comments from Federal Reserve Chair Yellen and Vice Chair Stanley Fisher.
Bank of America rose 35 cents, or 2 per cent, to $16.19, Wells Fargo rose $1.06, or 2 per cent, to $50.62 and Morgan Stanley rose 78 cents, or 2.5 per cent, to $32.19.
Hershey fell $12.02, or 11 per cent, to $99.65 after snack food company Mondelez International said it was walking away from its proposal to buy Hershey for roughly $25 billion.
Apple fell 82 cents, or 0.8 per cent, to $106 after the European Union ruled that it has to pay $14.5 billion in back taxes.
United Continental rose $4.04, or 8.6 per cent.
In energy trading, benchmark US crude oil fell 63 cents to $46.35 a barrel. Brent crude, used to price oil internationally, fell 89 cents to $48.37 a barrel.
In other energy commodities, heating oil fell 1.5 cents to $1.471 a gallon, wholesale gasoline fell 1.9 cents to $1.448 a gallon and natural gas fell 7 cents to $2.827 per thousand cubic feet.
Bond prices were mostly unchanged. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note edged up to 1.57 per cent.
The dollar rose to 102.97 yen from 101.98 yen late Monday. The euro slipped to $1.1139 from $1.1187.
In metals, gold fell $10.60 to $1,316.50 an ounce, silver fell 19 cents to $18.67 an ounce and copper fell less than 1 cent to $2.077 per pound, according to a news agency report.
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Source: The Financial Express