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Informist, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026                                      Tel +91 (22) 6985-4000

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Equity Alert: US mkts end lower; S&P 500, Dow Jones snap 3-day winning streak

 

MUMBAI--0753 IST--Equity indices in the US ended lower Thursday, with the S&P 500 index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average index snapping gains after three sessions. Investors' focus shifted from stocks of financial companies amid the tensions between the US and Iran. 

 

Investors shifted out of private credit stocks after private market and alternative assets manager Blue Owl Capital said it is going to tighten investor liquidity following a sale of loan assets worth $1.4 billion, CNBC reported. This prompted concerns from investors about losses in the private loans area. Shares of the company ended nearly 6% lower, with stocks of Blackstone and Apollo Global Management also falling over 5?ch. 

 

Stocks of software companies also came under pressure over fears of artificial intelligence disrupting their operations. Chief Executive Officer of Mistral AI Arthur Mensch said more than 50% of enterprises' software could be replaced by AI, CNBC reported. Shares of Salesforce, Intuit, and Cadence Design Systems fell 1-3%.

 

Tensions between Iran and US over the former's nuclear programme is keeping markets on the edge. US President Donald Trump Thursday said he was going to determine whether to launch military strikes on Iran in the next 10 days, CNBC reported. "So now we may have to take it a step further, or we may not," he said at the inaugural Board of Peace meeting, adding, "Maybe we're going to make a deal. You're going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days."

 

Walmart fell over 1% during the session despite beating estimates for its December quarter earnings. This comes as the company's new Chief Executive Officer John Furner gave a conservative outlook for the coming year, expecting net sales to rise 3.5-4.5% against expectations of an outlook of 5% by LSEG, Reuters reported. The company also announced a $30 billion share buyback plan. 

 

Data showed the initial jobless claims fell 23,000 to a seasonally adjusted 206,000 for the week ended Saturday, Reuters reported. This was below the forecast of 225,000 claims by economists polled by Reuters. This marked a significant decline since the claims surged to 232,000 at the end of January.

 

Following are the closing levels of US indices Thursday:  

 

Index	Level	Change in %
S&P 500	6861.89	(-)0.28
NASDAQ Composite	22682.73	(-)0.31
Dow Jones Industrial Average	49395.16	(-)0.54

 

(Akshat Saksena)

 

US$1 = INR 90.67

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Edited by Vandana Hingorani

 

All prices from National Stock Exchange, unless otherwise specified.

All percentage changes for share prices are rounded off to the nearest whole number; percentage changes for index values are rounded off to one decimal place.

All times are Indian Standard Time.

 

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