Wall Street finished lower on Thursday as investors took a cautious stance after a spike in the number of new coronavirus cases and deaths in China.
Conway G.
Gittens has the recap.
A dip on Wall Street as coronavirus fears strike
A choppy session on Wall Street Thursday as investors weighed a surge in the number of new coronavirus cases in China against a U.S. economy that's chugging along.
After fluctuating most of the day, The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell by the close.
National Securities chief market strategist Art Hogan says investors are cautious after the Chinese province at the center of the coronavirus outbreak on Thursday reported a record rise in deaths and thousands more infections, after changing the way it tests for the virus.
SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) ART HOGAN, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, NATIONAL SECURITIES, SAYING: "So now we actually know what the real number is.
So I think that once we knew that and it wasn't 15,000 that was coming from some other place; we didn't hear from another 15,000 people in another province or another country heaven forbid, that would be extremely bad news.
I think this is more of the 'we've actually changed the way we are counting and this is the real number that we know.
We're trying to be as transparent as possible.'
So I think the market is taking that with the same kind of caution that it's taken this entire process." Any economic damage exported from China to the U.S. - not yet showing in the data.
U.S. consumer prices ticked up in January led by a jump in rent and clothing costs.
The index saw its biggest 12-month gain in over a year.
Amazon scored a win in the courts.
A judge granted Amazon's request to temporarily halt a $10 billion cloud computing deal between Microsoft and the Department of Defense.
Amazon claims President Trump interfered to block it from getting that contract because of a vendetta against company CEO Jeff Bezos.
Bezos also owns the Washington Post, which has been critical of the president.
Shares of Amazon and Microsoft finished slightly lower.
Cisco Systems had a much bigger tumble.
Its stock dropped 5 percent after a dismal outlook.