WALL STREET CLOSES LOWER; TRAVEL STOCKS ZAPPED

Stocks on Wall Street fell for a second straight day on Tuesday as a global spike in coronavirus cases hit travel-related shares and investors had second thoughts about big US banks' apparently stellar earnings last week, Reuters reported.

Kansas City Southern surged 15.2% on the prospect of a bidding war after Canadian National offered about $30 billion for the US railroad, some $5 billion more than an earlier offer from Canadian Pacific, Shivani Kumaresan, Medha Singh and Herbert Lash reported for Associated Press (AP) on April 21, 2021.

Boeing Co slid 4.1% on the unexpected departure of its finance chief, the latest shock to hit the planemaker as it fights to recover from the pandemic and 737 MAX crisis. Investors piled into defensive sectors considered relatively safe during times of economic uncertainty, lifting real estate, utilities, consumer staples, and healthcare as financials and energy shares fell hard.

Shares of airline operators and cruise liners including JetBlue Airways, American Airlines, Norwegian Cruise Line, and Carnival Corp., which were hammered last year during lockdowns but have climbed recently on the reopening hopes, fell more than 4%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.75% to 33,821.3. The S&P 500 shed 0.68% to 4,134.94 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.92% to 13,786.27. It was the first back-to-back decline for the S&P since the end of March. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 10.21 billion shares, compared with the 10.59 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

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