The fall months have historically been tough ones for the stock market, and by now, it seems like the prospects for declines in markets during September and October are just as likely to be a self-fulfilling prophecy as anything. Regardless of the reason, investors were downbeat on the market on Wednesday, and that led to declines for the all three major market benchmarks. The Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX:^IXIC) suffered slightly larger declines on a percentage basis, losing its dominance over the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES:^DJI).
|
Dow Jones Industrial Average |
(0.20%) |
(69) |
|
S&P 500 |
(0.13%) |
(6) |
|
Nasdaq Composite |
(0.57%) |
(88) |
Data source: Yahoo! Finance.
However, some stocks managed to buck the downtrend. In particular, the consumer staples arena performed fairly well, and major players General Mills (NYSE:GIS) and Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ:KHC) posted solid gains. Below, we’ll go into more detail about what had shareholders in these food companies feeling better about their prospects Wednesday.
