Wall Street capped a day of mostly listless trading with a mixed finish Monday as gains in industrial companies, banks and energy stocks outweighed losses elsewhere.
Small-company stocks fared better than the rest of the market as investors shifted focus away from the tail end of a relatively strong corporate earnings season and looked ahead to key trade talks between the U.S. and China later this week.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin is leading a delegation set to meet with Chinese officials on Thursday and Friday. The talks are aimed at resolving a trade war that threatens to stunt global economic growth, in part by raising prices on goods for consumers and companies. The situation could get worse when a truce on tariffs expires in early March.
“The problem is, if this trade issue goes on long enough, it will metastasize itself to our economy, “said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 53.22 points, or 0.2 percent, to 25,053.11. The S&P 500 index rose 1.92 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,709.80. The Nasdaq composite added 9.71 points, or 0.1 percent, to 7,307.90. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks gained 12.59 points, or 0.8 percent, to 1,518.98. European markets finished higher.
U.S. indexes spent much of the day wavering between small gains and losses on a light day of company earnings news.
Companies have mostly reported better-than-expected earnings for the last three months of last year. Still, concerns have been building about whether profits can keep growing this year, especially after companies’ strong gains in 2018 following a sweeping corporate tax cut.
So far, 66.4 percent of companies in the S&P 500 have reported earnings, with 69 percent beating analysts’ forecasts. Earnings growth comes in at 14.5 percent for the quarter. However, some companies have tempered their outlooks and analysts currently expect a 2 percent contraction in the first quarter.
Signs the global economy is slowing have also added to the market’s worries about earnings in 2019.
Economists’ fears of a global slowdown were given additional fuel from a report Monday showing Britain’s economy had its slowest economic growth since the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Europe overall and China are contending with slower growth.