Stocks Pare Losses on U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Pact
December 10 2019 - 4:20PM
Dow Jones News
By Anna Isaac and Akane Otani
U.S. stocks were roughly flat Tuesday afternoon, paring earlier
losses after Democratic lawmakers reached an agreement with the
Trump administration to support a trade deal with Mexico and
Canada.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was nearly unchanged. The
S&P 500 lost less than 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite edged up
less than 0.1%.
Tuesday's trading day unfolded quietly, even as a flurry of news
caught traders' and analysts' attention. Stock futures had
initially climbed after The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S.
and Chinese trade negotiators were looking to delay a fresh round
of tariffs. But then they erased some of their gains heading into
the opening bell after House Democrats announced two articles of
impeachment against President Trump.
Markets then drifted off their lows after House Democrats said
they reached an agreement with the Trump administration on a trade
deal with Mexico and Canada.
Developments from Washington, as well as news on trade, could
spur further volatility in the markets heading into year-end,
analysts say.
Chinese and U.S. officials involved in the talks to postpone
tariffs on $165 billion of Chinese goods that are set to kick in on
Dec. 15 say they don't have a hard deadline for an initial
deal.
"A lot of different options are still on the table. We just
don't know what's going to happen," said Oliver Jones, market
economist at Capital Economics. "At one end of the spectrum,
there's a deal and the tariffs rollback. But just last week we had
Trump's remarks that there might not be a deal until after the
election."
Declines among technology companies weighed on major indexes,
with Netflix down 2.9% after Needham analysts downgraded the stock
to "underperform" from "hold."
Deal news also drove swings among individual stocks.
Shares of NortonLifeLock climbed 3.3% after the Journal reported
that the consumer-software company has attracted deal interest from
a range of companies including rival McAfee.
Elsewhere, the Stoxx Europe 600 dropped 0.3%, while the U.K.'s
FTSE 100 index dropped 0.3%. Britain is preparing to head to the
polls Thursday for a crucial election.
Meanwhile, Federal Reserve officials were kicking off their
final two-day policy meeting of the year Tuesday. Officials are
widely expected to decide to hold steady on interest rates after
lowering their benchmark rate three times since July to try to
cushion the U.S. economy against a slowdown in global growth.
Write to Anna Isaac at anna.isaac@wsj.com and Akane Otani at
akane.otani@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 10, 2019 16:05 ET (21:05 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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