U.S. stocks were steady Wednesday, after their record-setting gains the day before, on stronger-than-expected quarterly reports and despite concerns about the strength of the global economy. Futures of all major indexes were trading in a tight range. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up by 0.06 percent, the S&P 500 was off by 0.03 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was breakeven.
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The modest premarket activity comes amid of weakness in the global economy. German business sentiment dropped in April, indicating that Europe’s biggest economy continues to weaken.
On Tuesday, stocks closed at an all-time high as better-than-expected quarterly profits from some of the largest companies encouraged investors.
The benchmark S&P 500 index rose 17 percent, its best start to a year since 1987, while the Nasdaq has gained 22 percent, its best start since 1991. The Dow remains about half a percentage point from its record last October.
Ticker | Security | Last | Change | %Chg |
---|---|---|---|---|
I:DJI | DOW JONES AVERAGES | 26656.39 | +145.34 | +0.55% |
SP500 | S&P 500 | 2933.68 | +25.71 | +0.88% |
I:COMP | NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX | 8120.821795 | +105.56 | +1.32% |
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Tuesday’s move to a record high for the benchmark S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq index comes less than six months after a sharp decline in late December, which led the S&P 500 to its worst annual performance since 2008 But stocks quickly recovered in the past three months as the Federal Reserve stopped raising interest rates and the Trump administration said it was making progress on a trade deal with China.
Crude oil prices for U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) were fractionally lower at $66.26 per barrel. The slight pullback in WTI prices comes after the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reported a gain of almost 7 million barrels in inventories last week, more than five times the expected increase.
WTI is hovering just below a 6-month high touched Tuesday on supply concerns in reaction to Monday’s announcement by the U.S. that it would end sanctions that allowed some nations to import Iranian oil. The markets were already nervous about tight supplies resulting from output cuts by OPEC, Russia and others.
The Energy Information Administration is expected to say that crude stockpiles rose by 1.255 million barrels last week. Inventories of such refined products as heating oil diesel are anticipated to slip by almost 1.2 million barrels, while gasoline stocks likely fell by about 1 million barrels.
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China’s Shanghai Composite closed up 0.09 percent, the Hang Seng finished off 0.53 percent and Japan’s Nikkei 225 ended down 0.27 percent.
Britain’s FTSE 100 was off 0.55 percent, France’s CAC 40 was down 0.34 percent and Germany’s DAX rose 0.66 percent.x.