NEW YORK (AA) – Wall Street closed lower Tuesday as a stronger American dollar pushed oil prices lower.
The Dow Jones fell 140 points to end the day at 17,751 points. The S&P 500 declined 18 points to close at 2,063, while the Nasdaq was down 54 points to end the day at 4,763.
The Dow and S&P 500 closed at their lowest levels in the past 3 weeks but the Nasdaq marked its eighth decline in the past nine sessions.
Despite the declines, Apple’s stock increased 1.6 percent — ending an eight-day slump.
Meanwhile, the value of the U.S. dollar rose against a basket of major currencies — the British pound, euro, Chinese yuan and Japanese yen.
Because oil prices are indexed to the American dollar, a rising dollar weakens the purchasing power of crude oil importing countries, thus pushing oil prices lower.
American benchmark West Texas Intermediate was down around 2.5 percent to $43.64 per barrel at the final bell and International benchmark Brent crude was around $45.02 with an almost 2 percent decline. The oil market will now be focused on U.S. weekly crude inventories that will be announced Wednesday.
