Consumer companies fell as the meme stocks that had taken flight earlier this week came crashing to Earth.

Shares of GameStop tumbled, giving back their gains for the week after the videogame chain warned it expects to report a loss for the latest quarter amid sliding sales, and said it would sell up to 45 million more shares -- an attempt to capitalize on the craze for its shares. The volume came in strong and heavy.

"There's no doubt that the speculative aspect of the market, with the meme stocks and the penny stocks, created a bit of head-scratching," said Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist at brokerage LPL Financial. "There are those who remember how it ended ... it did not end well. Back then, folks had money ... they were sitting at home. And that's waned."

Bath & Bodyworks shares rose after analysts at brokerage JPMorgan raised their rating on the home-ware purveyor's shares.

The leading indicators for the U.S. economy fell in April for the second month in a row and pointed to "serious headwinds to growth." A combination of factors has buoyed rate-sensitive sectors such as consumer discretionary stocks this week. "The earnings have been good, Walmart in fact helped the market," said Krosby.


Write to Rob Curran at rob.curran@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

05-17-24 1751ET