US stock indexes close lower; oil price slips

Associated Press

A day of quiet trading on Wall Street ended Thursday with major U.S. stock indexes posting slight losses for the second day in a row.

Banks and energy companies led the slide, while high-dividend stocks such as utilities, real-estate investment trusts and phone companies rose as bond yields fell.

The price of U.S. crude oil closed lower.

Small-company stocks fared better than the rest of the market, nudging the Russell 2000 slightly higher.

Trading was light ahead of the New Year’s Day holiday.

“The market is just taking a breather here,” said Jeff Zipper, managing director of investments for The Private Client Reserve of U.S. Bank. “We moved so much in the month of November, there may be some profit-taking, maybe positioning for the first quarter.”

The major stock market indexes eked out small gains in early trading Thursday. But by midmorning, they drifted mostly lower and remained in the red the rest of the day.

Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.47 percent from 2.51 percent late Wednesday.

More stocks rose than fell on the New York Stock Exchange.