NEW YORK: Wall Street’s main indexes drifted lower on Friday, weighed down by losses in financial and technology stocks.
With third-quarter earnings season coming to a close and no major economic data expected, investors are focused on Republicans’ efforts to pass tax cuts after a barren first year for the Trump administration in Congress.
The House of Representatives took important steps on Thursday toward the biggest US tax-code overhaul since the 1980s, approving a broad package of cuts, while a Senate panel advanced its own version of the legislation.
Matt Lloyd, chief investment strategist at Advisors Asset Management in Monument, Colorado, said any new bets were likely to be muted as volumes fell ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday next week.
“Investors are going to get net neutral on their position,” he said.
“The biggest driver is going to be what happens with the Senate and the House. Can they work on something that will get to the President, that’s where everyone is going to be focusing on at this point.”
Oil prices rose but remained on course for their first week of losses in six, as concerns grew over Russia’s support for an extension of the crude output cuts that have bolstered prices in recent months.
At 9:52am ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 61.37 points, or 0.26%, at 23,396.99, the S&P 500 was down 3.06 points, or 0.12%, at 2,582.58 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 2.72 points, or 0.04%, at 6,790.57.
Shares of Twenty-First Century Fox jumped 6% after sources said Comcast and Verizon had expressed interest in acquiring a significant part of the company’s assets.
Abercrombie & Fitch jumped 20% and Gap rose about 6.3% after the apparel retailers reported results that beat estimates.
Those, along with a surge for sports retailers including Foot Locker, Shoe Carnival and Hibbett Sports were the latest signs of a revival of fortunes in a battered US retail sector.
But adding to pressure on the dollar was a Wall Street Journal report that investigators probing possible Russian interference in the 2016 US election had subpoenaed President Trump’s election campaign for documents.
Thursday’s other big stocks story after the bell was the surprise launch of a US$200,000 sports car by Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker Tesla. Its shares rose 3.12%.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,313 to 1,276. On the Nasdaq, 1,409 issues fell and 1,140 advanced. - Reuters
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