S&P 500 Falls as Senate Rejects Plan Replacing Sequester
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U.S. stocks erased gains in the final minutes of trading as investors prepared for rebalancing of benchmark indexes and after a Senate vote kept $85 billion of automatic spending cuts in place.
J.C. Penney Co. plunged 17 percent after posting its lowest annual sales in more than two decades. Sears Holdings Corp., the retailer controlled by hedge-fund manager Edward Lampert, slumped 5.2 percent after posting a fourth-quarter loss that was larger than it forecast. Intuitive Surgical Inc. dropped 11 percent as the provider of robots used in surgery is being probed by U.S. regulators over the safety of its products.