Wall St. opens lower as trade worries keep investors on sidelines - Investing.com

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the NYSE in New York

By Amy Caren Daniel

(Reuters) - U.S. stocks posted broad-based declines on Tuesday, led by tariff-sensitive industrial companies, as renewed worries over trade negotiations with China stoked global growth worries and kept investors away from risky assets.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will visit the United States this week for trade talks, Beijing said on Tuesday, playing down a sharp increase in tensions after U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to impose new tariffs.

Trump in a surprise move on Sunday said the higher levies would go into effect on Friday if a deal with China was not sealed, triggering a global selloff in equities and inflamed fears of a slowdown in global growth.

"There is some uncertainty on what the ultimate result of the trade negotiations will be. If there is no deal that will be interpreted quite negatively by markets," said Matt Forester, chief investment officer of BNY Mellon's Lockwood Advisors in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.

All the major S&P sectors were trading lower, with the industrial sector, posting the steepest decline of 1.6%.

Boeing (NYSE:) Co, the single largest U.S. exporter to China, slipped 1.8% and Caterpillar Inc (NYSE:) declined 1.3%. Boeing's stock was also weighed by report of a Barclays (LON:) downgrade to "equal weight".

Trade tensions also pressured oil prices, pushed U.S. Treasury yields lower and halted a recent rally that propelled the and the Nasdaq to record highs.

Interest rate sensitive banking stocks dropped 1.49% and the broader financial sector fell 1.18%.

Adding to growth worries, the European Commission revised down euro area growth forecasts and cut its already gloomy outlook on Italy.

At 9:53 a.m. ET the was down 284.00 points, or 1.07%, at 26,154.48. The S&P 500 was down 32.81 points, or 1.12%, at 2,899.66 and the was down 94.62 points, or 1.16%, at 8,028.67.

High growth companies including Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:), Apple Inc (NASDAQ:), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:) and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:) fell more than 1% and weighed on markets.

The earnings season has now reached its homestretch. Of the 392 S&P companies that have reported earnings so far, about 75% have surpassed analysts' estimates, according to Refinitiv data.

The upbeat reports have turned around earnings estimates for the first quarter to an almost 1% rise, a huge improvement from the 2.3% decline expected at the start of the earnings season.

American International Group Inc (NYSE:) jumped 7.7%, the most among S&P companies, after the insurer reported a quarterly profit that blew past expectations.

Among decliners, Mylan (NASDAQ:) NV tumbled 10.8% after the drugmaker missed Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue, hurt partly by manufacturing problems at its Morgantown plant in West Virginia.

Shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:) fell 6% after the drugmaker missed quarterly profit estimates.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 4.31-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and for a 2.85-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded four new 52-week highs and four new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 29 new highs and 15 new lows.

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https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/futures-fall-on-uschina-trade-uncertainty-1858726

2019-05-07 13:39:00Z
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