Stock rally loses momentum as travel, financial shares decline

Stocks closely tied to a rebound from the coronavirus pandemic fell Thursday as the market’s post-election gains dwindled.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed with a loss of 317 points Thursday, roughly 1.1 percent, and the S&P 500 index fell 1 percent. The losses were driven primarily by declines in shares for hotels, cruise lines, airlines, banks and other companies hindered by the coronavirus pandemic and its economic impact.

The Nasdaq composite also closed with loss of nearly 0.7 percent after opening up 0.3 percent on rallying pharmaceutical and technology stocks.

Thursday’s losses as a market rally that began the day before Election Day and accelerated on positive results from Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine candidate begins to lose steam.

The Nasdaq closed Wednesday with a gain of 2 percent and the S&P rose 0.8 percent, but the Dow closed largely flat after a more than 800-point gain on Monday.

The U.S. is currently facing a third wave of COVID-19 in every state, spurring record-breaking daily cases that have stretched some hospitals beyond their capacity. The U.S. reported 136,000 new cases of COVID-19 Tuesday, the largest single-day increase on record, according to a tracker by Johns Hopkins University.

Updated 4:30 p.m.