Wall Street closes lower on weak Target sales forecast

The S&P 500 fell on Wednesday as a gloomy sales forecast for Target sparked fresh concerns for retailers heading into the crucial holiday season, while stocks of semiconductors they slumped broadly after the Micron outage.

The actions of Target Corp they slumped as much as 16.9% as a pullback in consumer spending despite steep discounts also hurt their third-quarter earnings, which missed market expectations.

His gloomy forecast rocked the retail sector, with shares of Macy’s Inc, Best Buy Co Inc and Dollar Tree Inc falling sharply.

The titles of Micron Technology they fell after the company said it would reduce supply of memory chips and make further cuts to its capital spending plan.

The information technology sector of the S&P 500 and the index SE Semiconductor of Philadelphia they sank.

“The biggest issue in the industry is Target’s earnings and what that means for retail and consumer spending in general. I think that has set the tone for the market,” said Chuck Carlson, managing director of Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana.

The S&P 500 lost 32.94 points, or 0.83%, to end at 3,958.79 units, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 39.09 points, or 0.12%, to 33,553.83 units, while the Nasdaq Composite it lost 174.75, or 1.54%, to 11,183.66 units.

Gains in defensive areas, utilities and consumer staples helped mitigate losses from the S&P 500.

Despite the sales warning of Targetthe latest US retail sales data suggested that consumer spending held steady and could help prop up the economy in the fourth quarter.

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