Investing.com – U.S. equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Oil & Gas, Healthcare and Basic Materials sectors propelled shares lower.
At the close in NYSE, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.08%, while the S&P 500 index declined 1.07%, and the NASDAQ Composite index lost 0.89%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were Salesforce.com Inc (NYSE:CRM), which rose 1.71% or 4.22 points to trade at 251.21 at the close. Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD) added 0.22% or 0.69 points to end at 321.44 and The Travelers Companies Inc (NYSE:TRV) was down 0.15% or 0.24 points to 158.66 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Chevron Corp (NYSE:CVX), which lost 2.75% or 2.73 points to trade at 96.66 in late trade. Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) declined 2.54% or 3.82 points to end at 146.37 and International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM) shed 2.09% or 2.98 points to 139.44.
The top performers on the S&P 500 were Lowe’s Companies Inc (NYSE:LOW) which rose 9.60% to 199.75, TJX Companies Inc (NYSE:TJX) which was up 5.58% to settle at 73.01 and ViacomCBS Inc (NASDAQ:VIAC) which gained 3.66% to close at 40.46.
The worst performers were Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) which was down 3.83% to 103.44 in late trade, CME Group Inc (NASDAQ:CME) which lost 3.82% to settle at 197.55 and Lumen Technologies Inc (NYSE:LUMN) which was down 3.81% to 11.61 at the close.
The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were PharmaCyte Biotech Inc (NASDAQ:PMCB) which rose 189.47% to 9.9000, SGOCO Group Ltd (NASDAQ:SGOC) which was up 67.91% to settle at 7.220 and Virpax Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:VRPX) which gained 52.11% to close at 23.349.
The worst performers were Americas Car-Mart Inc (NASDAQ:CRMT) which was down 18.63% to 132.01 in late trade, Vaxcyte Inc (NASDAQ:PCVX) which lost 14.76% to settle at 22.99 and Sesen Bio Inc (NASDAQ:SESN) which was down 13.91% to 1.300 at the close.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 2276 to 948 and 139 ended unchanged; on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, 2035 fell and 1469 advanced, while 154 ended unchanged on the New York Stock Exchange.
The CBOE Volatility Index, which measures the implied volatility of S&P 500 options, was up 20.44% to 21.57.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was up 0.03% or 0.55 to $1788.35 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in October fell 2.95% or 1.96 to hit $64.38 a barrel, while the October Brent oil contract fell 2.30% or 1.59 to trade at $67.44 a barrel.
EUR/USD was up 0.01% to 1.1710, while USD/JPY rose 0.18% to 109.77.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.03% at 93.172.