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 Islamic State claimed responsibility for suicide bomb attacks in the
Belgian capital that killed at least 30 people, with police hunting
a suspect who fled the air terminal.
Travel sector stocks, including airlines and hotels, were among the
hardest-hit, although equities managed to recover from sharp losses
and bonds and gold eased from their early highs.
On Wall Street, the NYSEArca airline index lost 0.9 percent and was
on track for its first decline in five sessions. Cruise ship
operators Royal Caribbean, down 2.9 percent and Carnival Corp, down
2.1 percent, were among the worst performers on the S&P 500.
Those declines were offset by gains in Apple <AAPL.O>, up 0.8
percent to $106.72 and a 0.9 percent gain in the healthcare sector.
"The news obviously has been dominated by what has gone on in
Brussels, but experience tells us not only is it the morally right
thing to do to basically not overreact, it also turns out to be the
most profitable thing to do," said David Kelly, chief global
strategist at JPMorgan Funds in New York.
"The objective of terrorists is to disrupt and, to the extent that
they can, do horrible things but at least we have the small victory
that they have not disrupted global financial markets today."
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 41.3 points, or 0.23 percent,
to 17,582.57, the S&P 500 lost 1.8 points, or 0.09 percent, to
2,049.8 and the Nasdaq Composite added 12.79 points, or 0.27
percent, to 4,821.66.
The FTSEuroFirst 300 index of leading shares closed down 0.12
percent at 1,338.20, rebounding from a 1.6 percent drop. Belgian
stocks rose 0.17 percent after having been down as much as 1.4
percent. MSCI's index of world shares edged down 0.03 percent.
In Europe, the STOXX Europe 600 Travel & Leisure index was
down 1.8 percent. Shares in major European airlines like Ryanair and
Air France-KLM also fell.
Volume is expected to continue to diminish ahead of the Easter
holiday, and investors were beginning to think about cashing in on a
steep rally in stocks over the last few weeks.
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Gold was up 0.31 percent at $1,248.10 an ounce after hitting a high
of $1.259.60 earlier.
Benchmark U.S. 10-year notes were last down 6/32 in price to yield
1.9403 percent after falling as low as 1.879 percent as Chicago’s
Federal Reserve president struck a bullish tone on the U.S. economy.
In currency markets, the Japanese yen, regarded by investors as a
shelter from turbulence, pulled back from early gains, notably
against the euro. The euro was last up 0.14 percent at 126.01 yen
and the dollar turned positive, up 0.3 percent at 112.27 yen .
The euro fell 0.16 percent against the dollar to $1.1221. The dollar
was up 0.33 percent to 95.606 against a basket of major currencies.
Oil prices also steadied after the initial rush to safer assets,
with U.S. crude settling down 0.17 percent to $41.45 a barrel while
Brent rebounded from a low of $40.97 to settle up 0.6 percent at
$41.79.
(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Dan
Grebler)
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