Wall Street slips heading into holiday

Reuters

By April Joyner

NEW YORK, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Wall Street's major indexes dipped on Friday in low trading volume before the holiday weekend as several blue-chip stocks slipped, including Nike.

Nike Inc shares fell 2.3 percent after the company forecast muted growth in current-quarter revenue, reflecting its struggles in the North American market.

Investors are winding down ahead of Christmas on Monday, when the market will be closed.

"It's been a strong week," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia. "Whether the market is up a little bit or down a little bit is not indicative of larger trends ... It's easy to push things around when not many people are trading."

Indeed, major Wall Street indexes were on track to end the week higher, buoyed by a historic overhaul of the U.S. tax code.

President Donald Trump signed Republicans' massive $1.5-trillion tax overhaul into law on Friday and also approved a short-term spending bill that averts a possible government shutdown.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 28.23 points, or 0.11 percent, to 24,754.06, the S&P 500 lost 1.23 points, or 0.05 percent, to 2,683.34 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 5.40 points, or 0.08 percent, to 6,959.96.

The benchmark S&P has climbed about 20 percent this year and is on track for its best performance since 2013 on solid corporate earnings, strong economic fundamentals, upcoming cuts to corporate tax rates and hopes of looser regulations.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.04-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.30-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 4.81 billion shares, compared to the 6.98 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

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