Overseas Market Report
US stocks have ended little changed as financials rose with bond yields, while news that President Donald Trump instructed aides to proceed with tariffs on about $US200 billion of Chinese products limited gains.
The S&P financial index was up 0.7 per cent on Friday, leading percentage gains among sectors. Benchmark US Treasury yields rose above 3 per cent earlier in the day but were last off those levels. At the same time, the rate-sensitive S&P utilities index fell 0.5 per cent.
A source familiar with the White House decision also said the timing for activating the additional tariffs was unclear. The move came despite Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s attempts to restart talks with Beijing. “There are a lot of headlines that have come out, people have been pretty active all week, and it’s Friday afternoon,” said Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Greenwich, Connecticut. “You don’t really want to add additional risk when you don’t know what news might hit over the weekend,”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 8.68 points, or 0.03 per cent, to 26,154.67, the S&P 500 gained 0.83 point, or 0.03 per cent, to 2,905.01 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 3.67 points, or 0.05 per cent, to 8,010.04. For the week, the Dow was up 0.9 per cent, the S&P 500 was up 1.2 per cent and the Nasdaq rose 1.4 per cent.
Morning Market Note - Monday 17th September