U.S. stocks are rising Monday and the S&P 500 broke a four-day losing streak as industrial and retail stocks climb. Technology companies are also recovering after their drop last week.
Apple fell after saying a new round of bigger U.S. tariffs could push it to raise prices. CBS is skidding after it announced the departure of longtime CEO Les Moonves and Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba is down after it said co-founder Jack Ma will step down as chairman in 2019.
KEEPING SCORE: The S&P 500 index gained 6 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,877 at closing time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 58 points, or 0.2 percent, to 25,859 as health insurer UnitedHealth sank and aerospace company Boeing also traded lower.
The Nasdaq composite edged up 22 points, or 0.3 percent, to 7,924. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks rose 5 points, or 0.3 percent, to 1,718.
The S&P 500 fell 1 percent last week, its worst drop since late June.
ON THE REBOUND: Among industrial companies, United Technologies rose 1.4 percent to $133.85. Household goods maker Procter & Gamble climbed 1.2 percent to $82.87 while home improvement retailer Home Depot advanced 2.3 percent to $210.94.
Nike rose 2.2 percent to $82.03. The stock slumped 3 percent Aug. 31 as investors worried about potential backlash to an advertising campaign featuring former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Nike’s stock has now regained almost all the ground it lost since then.
TECH TURNAROUND? Technology companies moved higher as Microsoft picked up 1.1 percent to $109.38 and Broadcom rose 2.9 percent to $239.29. The S&P 500 technology index is coming off its largest weekly loss since March.
Apple missed out on the gains. The stock fell 1.4 percent to $218.24 after it might raise prices on some of its products, including the Apple Watch and the Mac mini, in response to the tariffs.
CBS SETTLEMENT: Media company CBS said CEO Les Moonves is stepping down after six more women accused him of sexual misconduct as well as retaliation if they resisted him. Moonves denied the charges in a pair of statements, although he said he had consensual relations with three of the women.
CBS fell 1.7 percent to $55.12.
U.S.-CHINA TRADE: The Trump administration could soon announce tariffs on $200 billion in goods imported from China and has threatened more taxes after that. The administration has already imposed tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese products, for which Beijing has retaliated with an equal amount of import taxes on U.S. goods.
Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab, said China’s government is not hurrying back to negotiations, but investors feel China has much more to lose in the trade dispute than the U.S. does.
“If Chinese businesses and Chinese consumers get uncomfortable with this whole battle, they get nervous and they get tentative,” he said. “When people do that, they stop spending.”
BIG SPLIT: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index tumbled 1.3 percent. It’s down almost 20 percent from its peak in late January, close to the entering what Wall Street calls a “bear market.”
The MSCI Emerging Markets stock index is already in a bear market as major indexes in Turkey and Russia skid.
Frederick said the gap between rising U.S. indexes and falling emerging markets indexes is unusual and can’t last for very long: either the difficulties in emerging markets will start to affect the rest of the world economy, potentially slowing U.S. growth, or emerging markets will start improving.
TOUGH TO SAY GOODBYE: Alibaba fell 4 percent to $155.96 after the e-commerce company said company founder Jack Ma will step down as chairman in September 2019. The next chairman will be Daniel Zhang. Zhang replaced Ma as CEO in 2013.
OVERSEAS: The European Union’s chief negotiator said the bloc might be able to reach a deal with Britain by early November.
Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, but an agreement will have to be reached months before that in order to get the necessary government ratifications.
The British pound rose to $1.13031 from $1.2924.
France’s CAC 40 added 0.3 percent and the German DAX moved up 0.2 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 was unchanged.
ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude fell 0.3 percent to $67.54 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, gained 0.7 percent to $77.32 a barrel in London.
Wholesale gasoline dipped 0.5 percent to $1.96 a gallon. Heating oil stayed at $2.22 a gallon. Natural gas rose 1 percent to $2.80 per 1,000 cubic feet.
BONDS: Bond prices edged higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.93 percent from 2.94 percent.
CURRENCIES: The dollar rose to 111.13 yen from 111.06 yen. The euro rose to $1.1596 from $1.1566.
METALS: Gold was little changed at $1,199.80 an ounce. Silver rose 0.1 percent to $14.18 an ounce. Copper inched up 0.2 percent to $2.63 a pound.
JAPAN: Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 climbed 0.3 percent after the country’s gross domestic product surpassed expectations by growing at a 3 percent annual rate in the second quarter.
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