Stocks mostly lower on Wall Street in morning trading
NEW YORK – Stocks are mostly lower on Wall Street in morning trading Wednesday after setting records the last few days. Energy companies are falling sharply along with the price of oil. Utility companies, prized for the steady dividends, are rising.
KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average was flat at 18,347 at 11:22 a.m. Eastern time. The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell one point, or less than 0.1 percent, to 2,151. The Nasdaq composite dropped seven points, or 0.1 percent, to 5,016.
DRUG SALES: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries jumped $9.50, or 5 percent, to $209.40 after it gave strong projections for second quarter results and moved closer to completing a $40.5 billion purchase of Allergan’s generic drug business.
JUNO JUMP: Juno Therapeutics soared $5.60, or 20 percent, to $33.35 after the regulators said its leukemia drug trials can continue. The stock had tumbled Friday after the Food and Drug Administration halted testing.
STORES SLUMP: Arts and crafts chain Michaels fell $1.85, or 6.4 percent, to $27.03 after a disappointing forecast. It said it plans to sell stock to raise money.
OIL: Benchmark U.S. crude fell $1.74 to $45.06 per barrel in New York while Brent crude, a standard for international oil prices, lost $2.09 to $46.38 a barrel in London.
BREAK IN GAINS? If the Dow and S&P 500 fall for the day, it will break a three-day winning streak kicked off Friday by a solid report on U.S. job creation in June. Investors are hoping the strengthening economy, plus a delay in Federal Reserve rate increases, will drive stocks higher in the coming weeks.
THE QUOTE: “Good economic numbers could translate into decent second quarter earnings, and rates are low and should stay low,” said Ernie Cecilia, chief investment officer of Bryn Mawr Trust. That makes for a “decent environment” for stocks.
EUROPE’S DAY: Britain’s FTSE 100 and France’s CAC 50 each rose 0.4 percent. Germany’s DAX was flat.
BRITISH CHANGE: Investors hope that the speedier-than-anticipated appointment of Theresa May as Britain’s prime minister will help provide some clarity as to how the country wishes to proceed with its exit from the European Union.
ANALYST’S TAKE: The move has “settled the nerves” of investors, said James Hughes, chief market analyst at GKFX, helping ease the “huge uncertainty” that had been hurting markets.
JAPAN IN FOCUS: Japanese stocks extended gains on hopes that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will expand bond purchases and flood the market with money now that his Liberal Democratic Party has emerged victorious from parliamentary elections on the weekend.
ASIA ADVANCES: Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.8 percent and South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.7 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.5 percent.
BONDS AND CURRENCIES: U.S. government bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.47 percent from 1.51 percent. The euro rose to $1.1111 from $1.1067 and the dollar fell to 104.22 yen from 104.79 yen. The pound was little changed at $1.3263.