NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks were slightly higher early Monday following the acrimonious Group of Seven weekend summit and ahead of key central bank announcements and Tuesday’s US-North Korea summit.
About 10 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 25,361.50, up 0.2 percent.
The broad-based S&P 500 had edged up 0.1 percent to 2,782.78, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index also climbed 0.1 percent to 7,655.11.
With a busy calendar this week, investors appeared to be only minimally focused on the messy G7 conclusion over the weekend, when President Donald Trump disavowed a group communique and bitterly attacked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Twitter.
“The stock market wasn’t unbowed by the G7 angst before the meeting and it hasn’t come unglued after it, which suggests a relatively high tolerance still for the notion that a more pernicious trade war isn’t going to break out,” said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare.
“Still, the little battles along the way are injurious all the same for investor sentiment, as they cast doubt on the sustainability of rally efforts.”
Analysts widely expect the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates on Wednesday and the European Central Bank is expected to debate ending stimulus bond-buying instituted after the financial crisis.
The US has offered North Korea “unique” security guarantees to persuade it to give up its nuclear arsenal, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on the eve of a historic summit in Singapore between Trump and Kim Jong Un.
Tesla Motors jumped 3.2 percent after chief executive Elon Musk said on Twitter that the company’s updated Autopilot software coming in August would enable “full self-driving features” for the automaker’s electric cars.
Source: Brecorder
