US stocks slide further as banks and energy companies sink

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes edged lower for the second day in a row Wednesday as a sharp drop for banks and a rare loss for technology companies canceled out gains for drugmakers and consumer-focused companies.

Investors picked consumer-focused companies, drugmakers, and high-dividend utilities and household goods companies.

"The stock market has been strong and all the while bond yields have dropped during the year," signaling caution about the economy, said Brent Schutte, chief investment strategist for Northwestern Mutual Management.

Yields were little changed Wednesday, but financial firms fell again as investors worried that banks' revenue from trading stocks, bonds and currencies is going to weaken in the second quarter.

At a financial industry conference in New York, Marianne Lake, JPMorgan Chase's chief financial officer, said JPMorgan's trading revenue is down about 15 percent this quarter because of a drop in fixed-income trading.

The tech sector has reached its highest levels since the dot-com boom and companies like Apple, Google parent Alphabet and Facebook have done far better than the rest of the market in 2017.

Brent crude, the standard for international oil prices, fell $1.53, or 3 percent, to $50.31 a barrel in London.

The luxury retailer said sales at older stores dropped in its latest quarter and investors were disappointed with its projections for the current quarter.

In other energy trading, wholesale gasoline lost 3 cents to $1.61 a gallon.