NEW YORK, June 26 — After two down days, Wall Street stocks climbed early today ahead of a crucial US-China trade encounter at this week’s Group of 20 summit in Japan.
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he was looking forward to the G20 talks, but alluded to the halting state of the negotiations in the months-long dispute.
“I think there’s a path to complete this but we’ll see what we get,” he told CNBC.
About 20 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 26,582.29, up 0.1 per cent.
The broad-based S&P 500 added 0.2 per cent at 2,923.09, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.8 per cent to 7,945.37.
Sales of US durable goods fell 1.3 per cent to US$243.4 billion (RM1.01 trillion) in May, US data showed, with the crisis involving the Boeing 737 MAX weighing on the figures.
Among industrial sectors, chip companies were especially strong in the early going of the session following a healthy earnings report from Micron Technology, which surged 11.4 per cent after reporting better-than-expected third-quarter earnings.
Other chip companies with big gains included Dow member Intel and Lam Research.
But General Mills plunged 8.4 per cent after fourth-quarter sales missed analyst expectations, due in part to lower sales in North America and some other regions.
A bright spot was the company’s addition of Blue Buffalo pet food, which was acquired in April 2018 and led to higher overall sales when currency fluctuations were removed. — AFP
