NEW YORK, Dec 5 — Wall Street’s main indexes dropped today, as investors stayed away from making riskier bets owing to a lack of new developments in US-China trade talks.
The three main stock indexes opened higher, extending gains from the previous session, but lost steam in the first hour of trading.
“There is no new news on the trade war and it’s mostly that,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas.
“So unless we get a positive or negative story to push the market one way or the other, we might as well be trading in this range for a while.”
Wall Street’s main indexes snapped a three-day losing streak in the previous session as headlines around trade suggested the world’s two largest economies were closer to agreeing how many tariffs would be rolled back in a “phase one” trade deal.
However, if no agreement is reached soon, more tariffs on Chinese goods will kick in from December 15.
Seven of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors were trading in the red, while shares of tariff-sensitive chip companies eked out gains, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor index up 0.3 per cent.
At 10:18 am ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 55.23 points, or 0.20 per cent, at 27,594.55, the S&P 500 was down 5.45 points, or 0.18 per cent, at 3,107.31 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 15.87 points, or 0.19 per cent, at 8,550.81.
Investors also seemed to shrug off yesterday’s lacklustre readings on domestic services sector activity and private payrolls growth as they await the Labour Department’s non-farm payrolls data due Friday.
Dollar General Corp gained 1 per cent after the discount store chain raised its full-year profit forecast.
Nike Inc shares climbed 1.5 per cent after a report said Goldman Sachs upgraded the sportswear maker’s stock to “buy” from “neutral”.
Kroger Co dropped 3 per cent as it missed Wall Street estimates for quarterly sales and profit, hurt by stiff competition from industry stalwarts Walmart Inc and Amazon.com Inc.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.05-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.01-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded seven new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 35 new highs and 32 new lows. — Reuters
