US open: Stocks slip as Trump's meeting with Putin kicks off
By Iain Gilbert
Date: Monday 16 Jul 2018
(Sharecast News) - Stocks on Wall Street slipped in early trade on Monday as investors digested earnings from Bank of America and BlackRock and eyed a summit between Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin.
At 1550 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.1% to 24,998.31, while the S&P 500 was down 0.2% to 2,795.51 and the Nasdaq was off 0.1% weaker at 7,814.95.
Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin met in the Finnish capital of Helsinki to discuss "everything from trade to military to missiles to China".
Putin told Trump that "the time has come to talk thoroughly about bilateral relations, as well as various hotspots in the world".
Trump said the pair would discuss trade, the military, missiles, nuclear weapons and China, including their "mutual friend" China's Xi Jinping. He also said "getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing".
"Frankly, we have not been getting along for the last number of years. And I really think the world wants to see us get along. We are the two great nuclear powers," he said.
Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, said: "While the talks themselves may only last a couple of hours, be on the lookout for the post-meeting press conference. The usual Trumpian remarks on politics, trade and oil could move financial markets."
Energy shares were under the cosh as oil prices took a tumble on reports that Saudi Arabia was offering extra crude supplies to some of its customers following a plan to boost output. Chevron and Exxon Mobil both gushed lower as West Texas Intermediate slid 3.7% to $68.49 a barrel and Brent crude dropped 3.6% to $72.71.
In individual company news, Bank of America rallied after its second-quarter earnings beat estimates, but BlackRock nudged down after the money manager said assets under management dipped in the second quarter.
Elsewhere, Netflix inched higher ahead of its earnings report, while Goldman Sachs advanced following a New York Times report over the weekend that the bank is planning to name President David Solomon to succeed Lloyd Blankfein as chief executive officer this week.
Amazon ticked higher as the online retail giant's Prime Day got under way.
On the data front, US retail sales increased as expected in June, marking five months of rising sales as the estimate for May was revised up.
Retail and food services sales rose 0.5% to $506.8bn from a month earlier - an increase that matched the average forecast from economists. The percentage gain for May was revised up to 1.3% from an earlier estimate of 0.8%.
Compared with June 2017 sales rose 6.6%, the US Census Bureau said.
Elsewhere, business conditions in the New York region deteriorated a little less than expected in July, according to a survey from the NY Fed.
The Empire State manufacturing index fell to 22.6 from 25.0 the month before but was ahead of expectations for a reading of 22.0. About 40% of respondents reported that conditions had improved over the month, while 17% said they had worsened.
The new orders index declined to 18.2 from 21.3 in June, while the shipments index fell to 14.6 in July from 23.5 the month before. The inventories gauge declined to -4.3 from 5.4 in June and the unfilled orders index came in at 0.0 in July from 9.3 in June.
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