Stocks end four days of losses as industrials, retailers rise
NEW YORK — U.S. stocks broke a four-day losing streak Monday as industrial companies and retailers rose. Technology companies recovered some of their steep losses from last week.
Transportation and other industrial companies continued their recent rally and retailers like Nike, Home Depot and Walmart all climbed. While technology companies rose overall, Apple fell after saying a new round of bigger U.S. tariffs could push it to raise prices.
CBS slipped after it announced the departure of longtime CEO Les Moonves, and Alibaba skidded after the big Chinese internet retailer said co-founder Jack Ma will step down as chairman in 2019.
The European Union’s chief negotiator said the bloc might be able to reach a deal with Britain by early November. The British pound jumped.
Investors expect the U.S. to put new tariffs on Chinese imports soon. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong fell again Monday after President Donald Trump again threatened to tax almost everything the U.S. imports from China. The index has tumbled almost 20 percent since late January as the dispute has escalated.
Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab, said investors feel China has much more to lose in the conflict than the U.S. does, as it exports much more to the U.S. than it imports from it.
“If Chinese businesses and Chinese consumers get uncomfortable with this whole battle, they get nervous and they get tentative,” he said. “When people do that, they stop spending.”
S&P 500 index gained 5.45 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,877.13. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 59.47 points, or 0.2 percent, to 25,857.07 as health insurer UnitedHealth and aerospace company Boeing traded lower.
The Nasdaq composite edged up 21.62 points, or 0.3 percent, to 7,924.16. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks rose 4.29 points, or 0.3 percent, to 1,717.47.
The S&P 500 fell 1 percent last week, its worst drop since late
June.
Nike rose 2.2 percent to $82.10. The stock slumped 3 percent Aug. 31 as investors worried about potential backlash to an advertising campaign featuring former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Nike’s stock has now regained almost all the ground it lost since then.
Technology companies moved higher as Microsoft picked up 1.1 percent to $109.38 and Broadcom rose 3.5 percent to $240.61. The S&P 500 technology index is coming off its largest weekly loss since March.
Apple fell 1.3 percent to $218.33 after it said it might raise prices on some of its products, including the Apple Watch and the Mac mini, in response to the tariffs.
The Trump administration could soon announce tariffs on $200 billion in goods imported from China and has threatened more taxes after that. The administration has already imposed tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese products, which Beijing matched.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index tumbled 1.3 percent. After peaking in late January, it’s close to entering what Wall Street calls a “bear market.” The MSCI Emerging Markets stock index has already breached that mark as major indexes in Turkey and Russia have also skidded.
Mr. Frederick said the gap between rising U.S. indexes and falling emerging markets indexes is unusual and can’t last for very long: either the difficulties in emerging markets will start to affect the rest of the world economy, potentially slowing U.S. growth, or emerging markets will start improving.
CBS announced Sunday that Mr. Moonves is stepping down after six more women accused him of sexual misconduct as well as retaliation if they resisted him. Mr. Moonves denied the charges in a pair of statements, although he said he had consensual relations with three of the women.
CBS fell 1.5 percent to $55.20. It has fallen 4 percent since the allegations against Mr. Moonves surfaced in late July.
Alibaba fell 3.7 percent to $156.36. The company’s next chairman will be Daniel Zhang. Mr. Zhang replaced Mr. Ma as CEO in 2013.
France’s CAC 40 added 0.3 percent, and the German DAX moved up 0.2 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 was unchanged as the pound climbed to $1.3029 from $1.2924. Benchmark U.S. crude fell 0.3 percent to $67.54 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, gained 0.7 percent to $77.37 a barrel in London.
Wholesale gasoline dipped 0.5 percent to $1.96 a gallon. Heating oil stayed at $2.22 a gallon. Natural gas rose 1 percent to $2.80 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Bond prices were little changed. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note remained at 2.94 percent.
The dollar rose to 111.21 yen from 111.06 yen. The euro rose to $1.1597 from $1.1566.