NEW YORK, July 23 — Wall Street stocks treaded water early today as Washington policy makers debated terms of additional stimulus spending and unemployment claims rose amid the latest spike in coronavirus cases.
Investors also focused on a trove of earnings reports, including a surprise profit from Tesla, which continued its surge.
About 30 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.2 per cent at 26,953.46.
The broad-based S&P 500 was flat at 3,276.23, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index shed less than 0.1 per cent at 10,703.44.
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on CNBC there would be some extension of supplemental unemployment benefits that expire on July 31, but that the payments would be trimmed to remove a disincentive to returning to work.
But the current size of the Republican plan under discussion is US$1 trillion (RM4.3 trillion), well below the US$3 trillion congressional Democrats favor and that “hints at likely contentious road to compromise,” noted Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare.
The debate on stimulus comes as the Labor Department reported that 1.4 million people applied for jobless benefits last week, the first week-over-week increase in claims since the early days of the Covid-19 crisis this spring.
Tesla gained 0.7 per cent as it reported a surprise US$104 million second-quarter profit.
The result clears the way for the highflying company led by Elon Musk to potentially join the S&P 500. A requirement for the prestigious Wall Street index is four successive profitable quarters, which Tesla has now achieved.
Among other companies reporting results, Microsoft shed 1.0 per cent, Twitter gained 5.6 per cent and American Airlines lost 2.2 per cent. — AFP
