Boeing was the biggest loser in the Dow, dropping 3.4 per cent after it announced it now does not expect the 737 MAX to return to the skies until mid-2020, later than some analysts expected. The news halted trading in Boeing shares for a time, but it ended off the low point.The broad-based S&P 500 shed 8.83 points to finish at 3,320.79, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index lost 18.14 points at 9,370.81.
Major US indices finished last week at all-time highs following the signing of a partial US-China trade agreement.But stocks spent much of Tuesday in the red in the first session of the week following Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The International Monetary Fund announced on Monday it had cut the latest global growth estimate for 2020 to 3.3 per cent, 0.1 percentage point lower than in the prior report released in October, noting an improvement in the US-China trade picture but pointing to weakness in India.
Besides Boeing, other weak companies included American Airlines, down 4.2 per cent, the travel service company Booking Holding, down 3.1 per cent and Wynn Resorts, down 6.1 per cent. Corporate earnings take centre stage during the holiday-shortened week, with reports from American Airlines, Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble due out, among others.