Category: Stock Market News

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was trading near its lows of the session on Wednesday as a trio of the blue-chip’s components combined to yank the benchmark south. Walt Disney Co.’s shares were contributing to a roughly 35-point decline in afternoon trade, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s stock and that of Boeing Co. were combining to weigh on the price-weighted average by another 30 points. All totaled those components were exacting a nearly 70-point toll on the blue-chip average. The slump in the Dow comes as global markets also are reacting to escalating tensions between the U.S. and North Korea after Pyongyang threatened to launch a military strike aimed at U.S. territory Guam. Most recently, the Dow was trading down 82 points, or 0.4%, at 22,001, clinging tenuously to its recent reached psychological milestone of 22,000. The S&P 500 index , meanwhile, was off 0.3%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index was falling 0.6% lower.

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Oil futures finished higher Wednesday after the Energy Information Administration reported U.S. crude inventories fell 6.5 million barrels last week, the ninth decline in a row. However, mounting geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and North Korea as the two countries exchanged a war of words limited crude prices from gaining further. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate for delivery in September gained 39 cents, or 0.8%, to settle at $49.56.

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There is some risk that the Federal Reserve could be too aggressive if it pushes too hard to raise interest rates, said St. Louis Fed President James Bullard on Wednesday. “I think we are actually in pretty good shape for rates right now,” Bullard said in an interview on Bloomberg. If conditions remain as they are “I would not see the policy rate moving very much off of where we are today.” The Fed has been surprised how soft inflation has been this spring, the St. Louis Fed President said. The softer data call into question the Fed’s story that inflation is gradually moving toward the Fed’s 2% target, he said. Bullard said he did not think weaker inflation was due to a few transitory factors as some other Fed officials, including Chairwoman Janet Yellen, have argued.

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Gold futures surged on Wednesday, to settle with their sharpest daily rise since mid May amid rising military tensions between the U.S. and North Korea. Gold for December delivery jumped $16.70, or 1.3%, to $1,279.30 an ounce, marking the biggest single-session advance since May 17 when the metal added $22.30 or 1.8%, according to FactSet data. North Korea’s recent threat to launch a missile strike at U.S. territory Guam helped to elevate haven buying in global financial markets. Pyongyang’s statements follow U.S. President Donald Trump’s late-Tuesday afternoon vow to respond to the Hermit nation with “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if it doesn’t cease its threatening posture, which includes a series of recent ballistic-missile tests.

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President Donald Trump’s threat to bring “fire and fury” down on North Korea was entirely improvised and caught his aides by surprise, the New York Times reported Wednesday, citing several people with direct knowledge of what unfolded. Trump appeared to look at a single page of talking points when he made the threat but the piece of paper was a fact sheet on the opioid crisis, the report said.

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Crocs Inc. shares have swung to a 6.2% increase after falling as much as 3.5% in Wednesday premarket trading. The shoe company’s shares fell after it gave weak third-quarter guidance, forecasting sales between $230.0 million and $240.0 million, below the $247.5 million FactSet consensus. On the earnings call, the company said the guidance includes the impact of store closures, with 25 stores expected to shutter in the the third quarter. The company closed or transferred 39 stores during the second quarter. Earnings and sales beat consensus. Crocs shares are up more than 38% for the last three months. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF is down 7.6% for the period, and the S&P 500 index is up 3% for the last three months.

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Birchbox, the subscription beauty service, has been in talks with a number of retailers about being acquired, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. , according to Recode. Wal-Mart has recently purchased a number of online sites, including ModCloth and Bonobos. It paid more than $3 billion for Jet.com in 2016. Marc Lore, Walmart U.S.’s e-commerce head, was in discussions with Birchbox’s Chief Executive and Co-Founder Katia Beauchamp. Birchbox underwent two rounds of layoffs in 2016 after investment stalled. It generates $200 million in annual sales, according to Recode. The company had to secure $15 million in investment last summer after a focus on e-commerce growth. They’ve raised more $80 million in total and some of that is coming due. Wal-Mart shares are up 0.3% in Wednesday trading, and up 17.7% for the year so far, outpacing the S&P 500 index , which is up 10.3% for 2017 so far.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average is being weighed down by a steep drop in shares of Walt Disney Co., and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., in early trade Wednesday. Disney’s shares were contributing to a 35-point slump in the price-weighted blue-chip equity gauge, representing the lion’s share, or more than half, of the benchmark’s early morning retreat. Goldman’s stock , meanwhile, was sapping about 12 points from the Dow. All totaled, the pair exacted a nearly 50-point toll on the blue-chip average. Wall Street also is reacting to a flare-up in military tensions after North Korea threatened to launch a missile strike aimed at U.S. territory Guam, underlining deteriorating relations between Washington and Pyongyang. Still, the majority of the slide in the Dow appeared to be largely pegged to Disney’s late-Tuesday announcement, along with quarterly earnings, that it would launch an ESPN streaming service in 2018 and a direct-to-consumers offering in 2019, as it ends its distribution deal with Netflix Inc. . Overall, the Dow was off 50 points, or 0.2%, at 22,035, while the S&P 500 index was trading 0.2% lower at 2,469, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was 0.5% lower at 6,340. Mounting political tensions have cast a downbeat shadow over markets but the decline so far appears to be relatively muted.

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U.S. crude oil inventories fell by 6.5 million barrels to 1.15 billion barrels while gasoline inventories rose 3.4 million barrels to 231.1 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 4, the Energy Information Administration reported Wednesday. Data from the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday also showed that crude inventories fell 7.8 million barrels, while gasoline inventories increased 1.5 million barrels during the week. The data are having a muted impact on the market as the sharp drop in crude inventory is being canceled out by the gain in gasoline supply. West Texas Intermediate futures were mostly flat at $49.17 a barrel.

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FBI agents raided the home of Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, late last month, The Washington Post reported, citing people familiar with the special-counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The Post report said the raid came before dawn and without warning, and was conducted to seize documents and other materials. The significance of the records seized from Manafort’s apartment is unclear, the report added. NBC News reported that a Manafort spokesman had confirmed the raid occurred.

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