Wall St. set to end 2016 with a whimper

(Reuters) — U.S. stocks fell on the last trading day of 2016, eating into gains for the year, as Apple led a decline in technology stocks.

The S&P 500 technology sector’s 0.72 percent drop put the broader index on track for its third straight day of declines, its longest losing streak since Nov. 4.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average was set for its first weekly decline since the U.S. election. The rally had pushed the index to within 13 points of 20,000 last week, but after three straight days of losses, the index is now about 200 points shy.

“The market is ending 2016 with a whimper. We entered the rally like a lion, but are leaving like a lamb,” said Andre Bakhos, managing director of Janlyn Capital in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

“It is disappointing on many levels as investors believed that we are going to see the Dow at 20,000. The euphoria that was in motion in the Trump rally has fizzled.”

Until Thursday, the three main Wall Street indexes were set to end the year with double-digit percentage gains. The S&P is now on track to post a gain of 9.7 percent for the year, the Nasdaq 7.8 percent and the Dow 13.7 percent.

At 12:35 p.m. ET (1735 GMT) the Dow was down 20.2 points, or 0.1 percent, at 19,799.58, the S&P 500 was down 5.87 points, or 0.26 percent, at 2,243.39 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 38.38 points, or 0.71 percent, at 5,393.71.

Seven of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors were lower, with technology and consumer discretionary stocks taking the biggest hit.

Apple was the biggest drag on all three indexes, falling 0.6 percent to $115.98 after the Nikkei financial daily reported that the company would cut production of the iPhone by about 10 percent.

Apple suppliers also dropped on the news. Qualcomm, Skyworks Solutions, Cirrus Logic and Qorvo were down between 1 percent and 2 percent.

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Declining issues outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by 1,444 to 1,402. On the Nasdaq, 1,795 issues fell and 1,004 advanced.

The S&P 500 index showed one new 52-week high and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 35 new highs and 36 new lows.

(Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Savio D’Souza)