Record Month Ends In Pain As Biotech, Small Caps, Apple Tumble
By Lu Wang
Investments that catapulted U.S. stocks to all-time highs in April turned sour as the month ended, all but erasing gains in the Standard & Poor?s 500 Index.
Health-care stocks, small caps and shares of Apple Inc. and LinkedIn Corp. tumbled as the month wound down, with companies in the biotechnology industry poised for the worst weekly retreat since August 2011. They echoed the fate of popular trades elsewhere, as the dollar and European bonds slid while energy prices rebounded.
?You?ve got oil and the dollar that just throw a monkey wrench in everything,? Joseph Tanious, an investment strategist at Bessemer Trust in Los Angeles, said in a phone interview. The firm oversees more than $100 billion. ?I?d not be surprised if we begin to see more positioning and more choppiness.?
Plunging stocks took the shine off a month of records in U.S. equities, with the S&P 500 returning to an all-time high after its longest stretch without one in two years. The Nasdaq Composite Index jumped to its first record since the dot-com bust on April 23 — only to drop in four of the next five sessions.
Even with the end-of-month retreat, April was no bust for investors. The S&P 500 eked out a gain of 0.9 percent and an index of its 100 biggest companies rose 1.6 percent. S&P 500The reemergence of mega-cap equities was a theme as the dollar?s rally waned: larger companies beat smaller ones by the most since September, reversing a six-month under performance.