: Nasdaq, S&P 500 briefly turn lower as stocks pare gains heading into final hour of trading

U.S. stocks pared earlier gains heading into the final hour of trading on Tuesday, with the Nasdaq Composite COMP and S&P 500 SPX briefly turning lower, as investors grappled with a spate of disconcerting news that helped to diminish investors’ appetite for risk. The S&P 500 was up 16 points, or 0.4% at 3,823 in recent trade after briefly tumbling below 3,800 at around 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time. The Nasdaq Composite was up 24 points, or 0.5%, at 10,588 in recent trade after tumbling below 10,500 about a half hour earlier. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA was up 280 points, or 0.9%, at 33,111 Tuesday afternoon after rising more than 500 points earlier. Traders and market strategists blamed a plethora of factors for the pullback in stocks, including the Binance-FTX deal which some feared might portend more chaos in the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin was down more than 11% to trade below $18,200 as a result. “The whole thing seems like a giant disaster and it’s one thing after another in the crypto industry,” said Joe Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading, in a phone call with MarketWatch. On Twitter, analysts blamed comments from a FedEx Corp. FDX executive. Finally, Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B.Riley Wealth, blamed reports about issues with voting machines, which he said could prolong the uncertainty surrounding the results of the election. “It’s a jittery market and it doesn’t take much to tip over the apple cart,” he said.

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