NEW YORK — That screeching sound you heard in May? That was the stock market. While the month ended with four days of gains in most of the indexes, concerns that high gas prices, tornadoes and flooding in the South, the post-natural disaster slowdown in Japan and a growing debt crisis in Europe sent the Standard and Poor’s 500 stock index down 1.4 percent in May. That decline followed a 2.85 percent gain in April, which followed gains that set the fastest pace in the first quarter since 1998. Before this month, stocks were boosted by higher corporate earnings, increased business spending and a global economic expansion.
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