Stocks extended their losses for a second day Thursday, dragged by health care and techs, after a batch of economic data that missed projections and mixed earnings reports.
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Stocks gyrated in a wide range this week, with all three major benchmark indexes suffering their sharpest one-day drop of the year on Monday, before recovering most of those losses on Tuesday. However, after Wednesday and Thursday's consecutive declines, stocks are on track for their worst weekly losses of the year.
"You can tell equity investors are on edge and looking for a reason, almost any reason, to take a little money off the table," wrote Scott Wren, senior equity strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors. "A series of worse than expected economic reports out of China, Europe and the U.S. over the last handful of trading days has taken some of the enthusiasm out of the market."
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