In a choppy session on Wednesday, U.S. stocks struggled to find direction after three straight days of losses put the major averages on track for monthly drops.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average teetered into the red, while the S&P 500 was barely over breakeven. The heavily tech-focused Nasdaq Composite rose 0.1%. Much of the relief surge from the summer has been wiped by recent stock market volatility, with the S&P 500 officially wiping out half of its rise since mid-June.
Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) stated in an anticipated strategic update that it would cut personnel and close about 150 locations as part of a recovery effort for its faltering business. As soon as trading opened on Wednesday, shares of the home goods retailer plunged about 22%. The business also reported securing new finance worth more than $500 million.
The declaration came shortly after Bed Bath & Beyond disclosed in a regulatory filing that it would occasionally offer, issue, and sell shares of its common stock and might utilize any profits from such possible stock sales, among other things, to pay off short-term debt.
The social media juggernaut Snap (SNAP), which employs more than 6,400 people, was in the news elsewhere in the markets after confirming allegations that the business may cease or cut investment in several projects as part of a larger reorganization exercise and lay off 20% of its workers. Share prices increased 6% on Wednesday.
CEO Evan Spiegel stated in a statement that “the scope of these adjustments vary from team to team, depending upon the level of attention and investment needed to deliver against our strategic priorities.” The extent of this decrease should balance our desire to invest in our long-term future and reaccelerate our revenue growth while significantly reducing the risk of ever having to do this again.
Shares of pet retailer Chewy (CHWY) fell more than 8% after it released second-quarter sales figures that fell short of Wall Street forecasts and revised its full-year outlook, citing the effect of inflationary pressures on pet product purchases.
After Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway reduced its interest in the Chinese company, BYD (BYDDY), an electric vehicle manufacturer with a Hong Kong stock exchange listing, its shares fell 8% at the start of the session. The action was taken one month after allegations that Berkshire was about to sell all of its stake in the electric car manufacturer drove the market plummeting.
The investor reduced its holdings in BYD’s Hong Kong-listed shares, from 20.04% on August 24 to 19.92% on Tuesday, selling 1.33 million units at an average price of HK$277.10 ($35.30) per, for a total value of nearly $47 million.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil fell about 3% to $88.92 per barrel on the energy markets, while Brent crude oil futures fell almost 3.3% to $96.06 per barrel.
According to Susannah Streeter, senior financial and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, the decline in oil prices is due to “traders’ assessment of the darkening clouds over the global economy and the forecast of reduced demand.”
