U.S. stocks were largely split on Wednesday, as gains in Disney and consumer discretionary spending battled against the screeching halt of the oil rally.
The Dow lost 510 points in the last week of January, but regained all but nine of them in the first two days of February trading. Experts attributed this to the $7 per barrel rise in oil prices that spanned Monday and Tuesday.
But on Wednesday, U.S. crude prices dropped 8% in a single day, which accounted for the largest single-day drop since November.
The slowdown was attributed to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s report, which said that domestic stockpiles of oil grew by another 6.3 million barrels last week. This brings the total to 413 million barrels of oil–the largest total since record-keeping began in 1982.
The ADP employment report—the precursor to Friday’s all-important jobs report—showed January payrolls increased by 213,000, slightly under the expected figure of 225,000.
Here are the final numbers from Wall Street Wednesday:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 17,673.02 (+6.62)
NASDAQ: 4,716.70 (-11.03)
S&P 500: 2,041.49 (-8.54)
