US STOCKS-S&P 500 closes lower as COVID-19 resurgence casts a shadow on sentiment

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By Stephen Culp
NEW YORK, June 19 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 ended lower on
Friday after an up-and-down session as investors weighed spiking
cases of COVID-19 and Apple Inc's announcement of fresh store
closures against anticipated stimulus and continued economic
recovery.
The S&P 500 ultimately settled in the red, along with the
blue-chip Dow, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed modestly
higher.
"You've got these dueling forces with Fed stimulus and the
consumer spending again on one side, and on the other side the
resurgence (of COVID-19) in pockets of areas around the globe,"
said Matthew Keator, managing partner in the Keator Group, a
wealth management firm in Lenox, Massachusetts.
Apple Inc AAPL.O announced it is temporarily shutting some
stores again in Florida, Arizona, South Carolina and North
Carolina, which have seen a spike in coronavirus cases in recent
days. "Apple is the canary in the coalmine with respect to other
businesses," Keator added. You'll start to see other businesses
do similar things in some of the states where we're seeing the
virus reemerge."
"(But) there's also a feeling that the Fed is acutely aware
of what's going and will help where and when needed," Keator
said.
New cases of COVID-19 set records across at least six U.S.
states, and mandated mask use is becoming more common as
economies continue reopening. China, where the pandemic
originated but had been contained, also reported an uptick in
new cases of the disease. Still, for the week, the S&P 500, the Dow and the Nasdaq
posted solid percentage gains.
The S&P 500 and the Dow are now about 9% and 13% shy of
their respective all-time highs reached in February. The
tech-heavy Nasdaq stood about 1% below its last closing high
reached on June 10, after breaching that level earlier in the
session.
Trading volume is typically light on summer Fridays as
investors head into the weekend.
But Friday marked "quadruple witching," in which futures and
options expiries occur, and that typically translates into
elevated volume and liquidity. The S&P is synchronizing its
delayed rebalancing to take advantage of that liquidity.
In a video conference, U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome
Powell warned the economic recovery from the pandemic is set to
be challenging and there will be no quick fix. Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell
207.54 points, or 0.8%, to 25,872.56, the S&P 500 .SPX lost
17.64 points, or 0.57%, to 3,097.7 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC added 3.07 points, or 0.03%, to 9,946.12
Airlines, hit particularly hard by the economic lockdowns,
were down sharply.
Shares of AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc AMC.N dropped
after the world's largest movie theater operator announced that
it would begin reopening theaters but reversed its early
decision to allow customers not to wear face masks.