Nasdaq And S&P 500 Fall To One-Month Closing Lows

(RTTNews) - Stocks moved mostly lower over the course of the trading day on Tuesday after experiencing choppy trading early in the session. The drop on the day extended the notable downward move that was seen in the previous session.

Adding to the losses posted in two previous sessions, airline stocks turned in some of the market's worst performances on the day. The NYSE Arca Airline Index fell by 1.4 percent to its worst closing level in over a month.

Hawaiian Airlines parent Hawaiian Holdings (HA) and Avianca Holdings (AVH) posted steep losses on the day, falling by 2.8 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively.

Considerable weakness was also visible among defense stocks, as reflected by the 1.2 percent loss posted by the Philadelphia Defense Sector Index. The drop pulled the index down to a one-month closing low.

Tobacco, networking, and software stocks also saw notable weakness, while most of the other major sectors showed more modest moves to the downside.

On the other hand, gold stocks bucked the downtrend, resulting in a 2 percent gain by the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index. The strength in the sector came as gold for December rose $4.10 to $1,222 an ounce.

The major averages saw further downside going into the close, ending the session at their worst levels of the day. The Dow tumbled 116.81 points or 0.7 percent to 17,055.87, the Nasdaq fell 19.00 points or 0.4 percent to 4,508.69 and the S&P 500 slid 11.52 points or 0.6 percent to 1,982.77.