The stock market stumbled at the open. Now it’s starting to slide.
The Dow was down 265 points, or 0.6%, after opening higher. The S&P 500 was down 0.5%. The Nasdaq Composite was down 0.5%.
Very little was working on Wall Street. Treasury bond prices were also falling, while only 114 stocks in the S&P 500 were trading higher. The top S&P winners included firms that reported quarterly results, such as Pepsi and Delta Air Lines.
Industrials, materials, and energy stocks were struggling, but so were consumer discretionary, communication services, real estate, and technology. The only major S&P 500 sectors on the rise were consumer staples and health care. The latter was barely above breakeven.
ETFs with stocks focused on value, risk, dividend stocks, and small-caps were all struggling.
Even gold was falling, with the price of the yellow metal down 2.6% after rallying with stocks.
Earlier this morning, Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer of One Point BFG Wealth Partners, called attention to a recent wave of bullish sentiment. Some traders, most famously Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, get uneasy when Wall Street gets especially bullish.
“With respect to stock market sentiment, I have to throw out the red flag today after seeing the Investors Intelligence survey with Bulls rising to 57.7 from 53.7 while Bears fell to just 15.4 from 16.7,” Boockvar wrote. “Bottom line, the sentiment is now ebullient and from a contrarian standpoint we should take note.”