- US stock markets end day higher after initial losses
- European and Asian stock markets suffer losses
- International manufacturing data looks bleak
US stock markets ended higher on Monday after a late upturn led by tech shares.
The important indices spent a big part of the day at lower levels, with lackluster manufacturing data and growing rhetoric in the international trade dispute making matters worse. At one point, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 194 points lower.
Tech stocks, including Google parent company Alphabet and Facebook, saved the day with price increases of up to 1%. Trading volumes remained relatively low.
The S&P 500 ended the day 0.3% higher, the Dow industrials ended 36 points higher, and the technology sector improved by 1%. The Nasdaq Composite ended 0.8% higher.
Analysts ascribed Monday’s moves to ongoing uncertainty surrounding international trade. President Trump is using threats of a 20% levy on imported cars to force US trading partners to make concessions. This has prompted China to threaten the US with 25% higher tariffs on imported US cars.
This could spread to other sectors, including aluminum and steel.
PNC Investments CEO and President Rich Guerrini said this uncertainty has made investors reluctant to holds stocks overnight.
Seven of the S&P’s 11 sectors ended higher yesterday, with oil prices slumping and energy shares dropping by 1.6%.
Poor international manufacturing data made things worse, with production in the Eurozone expected to drop even further.
Reports from Japan and China, meanwhile, also point to relatively weak manufacturing output from these two countries. The STOXX Europe dropped by 0.8%, while South Korea and Japan’s stock markets posted their worst losses in three months.
The Shanghai Composite Index dropped by 2.5% and ended the day at its lowest level since the first part of 2016.
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