After moving mostly higher early in the session, stocks continued to turn in a strong performance throughout much of the trading day on Monday before giving back ground going into the close.
Despite the late-day pullback, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 ended the session at new record closing highs.
The Nasdaq rose 78.52 points or 0.4 percent to 20,974.17 and the S&P 500 (SPI:SP500) inched up 8.81 points or 0.1 percent to 6,305.60, although the narrower Dow edged down 19.12 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 44,323.07.
The early strength on Wall Street reflected optimism about potential trade deals, with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick saying he is confident the U.S. will reach an agreement with the European Union.
“These are the two biggest trading partners in the world, talking to each other. We’ll get a deal done,” Lutnick said in an interview with CBS News over the weekend. “I am confident we’ll get a deal done.”
However, Lutnick also described August 1st as a “hard deadline” for new “reciprocal tariffs” on U.S. trade partners to take effect.
“Nothing stops countries from talking to us after August 1st, but they’re going to start paying the tariffs on August 1st,” he said.
Buying interest waned over the course of the session, however, as traders looked ahead to the release of earnings news from several big-name companies this week, including Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC).
On the U.S. economic front, a report released by the Conference Board showed its reading on leading U.S. economic indicators fell by slightly more than expected in the month of June.
The Conference Board said its leading economic index declined by 0.3 percent in June following a revised unchanged reading in May.
Economists had expected the leading economic index to slip by 0.2 percent compared to the 0.1 percent dip originally reported for the previous month.
Sector News
Despite the pullback by the broad markets, gold stocks showed a substantial move to the upside on the day, resulting in a 3.8 percent spike by the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index. The rally by gold stocks comes amid a sharp increase by the price of the precious metal.
Significant strength was also visible among steel stocks, as reflected by the 2.5 percent surge by the NYSE Arca Steel Index.
Telecom and retail stocks are also saw some strength on the day, while natural gas and biotechnology stocks showed notable moves to the downside.
Other Markets
In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region turned in a mixed performance on Monday, with Japanese markets closed for a holiday. China’s Shanghai Composite Index climbed by 0.7 percent, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index slumped by 1.0 percent.
The major European markets also ended the day mixed. While the French CAC 40 Index fell by 0.3 percent, the German DAX Index inched up by 0.1 percent and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index rose by 0.2 percent.
In the bond market, treasuries moved notably higher early in the session and remained firmly positive throughout the day. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, slid 6.0 basis points to 4.372 percent.
SOURCE: RTTNEWS