Yahoo Finance Stocks - Wall Street Falls Ahead of Powell Testimony
Investing.com – Wall Street opened lower on Wednesday as a trade deal between the U.S. and China seemed less likely, while trading was subdued as investors awaited testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on the central bank’s monetary policy.
The Dow was down 29 points or 0.1% by 9:44 AM ET (13:44 GMT), while the S&P 500 lost 7 points or 0.3% and the Nasdaq composite slipped 22 points or 0.3%.
Trump said in a speech on Tuesday that while a deal with China was “close” he could still increase tariffs if no deal was reached. He is also expected to decide on possible tariffs on automobiles from the European Union today, although experts expect him to delay a decision by six months.
"Now is more the realization that 'phase one' is really not a done deal," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities in New York.
"It felt for a couple weeks that the deal was almost done and then you have these comments that sort of puts us in the same place we were."
Traders will also be tuning into testimony from Powell, who is set to testify before Congress in a hearing at 11:00 AM ET. He is expected to address the Fed’s recent decision to apparently put any further interest cuts on hold.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) rose 1.3% after CEO Elon Musk said the electric car company would build a car and battery factory in Berlin, Germany, while Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) gained 0.6% ahead of its earnings after the bell.
Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) fell 0.4% on news that Nike (NYSE:NKE) will no longer sell its products through the e-commerce giant, while SmileDirectClub (NASDAQ:SDC) tumbled 15.4% after reporting a loss in the last quarter and said it expects losses to continue due to rising expenses.
In commodities, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was up 0.1% to 98.215 and gold futures gained 0.7% to $1,464.35 a troy ounce. Crude oil futures rose 0.4% to $56.99 a barrel.
-Reuters contributed to this report
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