It Was a Bad Day for McDonald;s, Coca-Cola

Burger chain slumps 5.2% amid E.coli outbreak
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Oct 23, 2024 3:44 PM CDT
McDonald's Drops 5.2% Amid E. Coli Outbreak
A McDonald's Quarter Pounder hamburger.   (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

US stocks closed lower Wednesday as more steam came out of Wall Street's huge, record-breaking rally.

  • The S&P 500 fell 53.78 points, or 0.9%, to 5,797.42. It was the third loss in a row for the benchmark index, the first time that's happened in six weeks.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 409.94 points, or 1%, to 42,514.95.
  • The Nasdaq composite fell 296.47 points, or 1.6%, to 18,276.65 as Nvidia and other Big Tech stocks were among the market's heaviest weights.
Momentum has reversed for stocks since the S&P 500 set a record on Friday as pressure has increased from rising Treasury yields in the bond market. Yields rose again Wednesday.

McDonald's helped pull the market lower and dropped 5.2% after federal health officials linked its Quarter Pounder burgers with an E. coli outbreak that's affected at least 49 people in 10 states. Investigators are still trying to find what specific ingredient is contaminated. Coca-Cola fell 2.1% even though it reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, the AP reports. The company benefited from higher prices for its products, but a lot of focus was on how much product the company shipped during the quarter, and that fell short of some estimates.

Boeing slipped 1.8% in what could be one of the most consequential days in years for the troubled aerospace manufacturer. The company reported a loss of more than $6 billion for the latest quarter as it waited to see the results of a vote by machinists later in the day that could end a strike that's crippled aircraft production for more than a month. Boeing stock has lost 40% this year.

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The market's most impactful losses came from Big Tech stocks, which have been battling criticism for a while that their prices soared too high amid Wall Street's frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. Nvidia's 2.8% drop and Apple's 2.2% fall were the two heaviest weights on the S&P 500. Helping to limit the losses for indexes was AT&T, which rose 4.6% after reporting stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Texas Instruments climbed 4% after the semiconductor company reported stronger profit and revenue than analysts expected. While revenue from industrial users declined from the prior quarter, CEO Haviv Ilan said all other end markets grew.

(More stock market stories.)

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