U.S. Stocks Slip as Strong Chinese Trade Data Boost Global Markets

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U.S. stock indexes were trading lower on Tuesday, following the Labor Day holiday on Monday. U.S. government bond yields, meanwhile, rose strongly.

The

S&P 500

was down 0.2% in afternoon trading, while the

Nasdaq Composite

was up 0.2%. The

Dow Jones Industrial Average

was off 178 points, or 0.5%, dragged down by losses from

Boeing

(ticker: BA),

Amgen

(AMGN), and

Merck

(MRK).

The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose 0.06 percentage point on Tuesday, to 1.38%. U.S. stock and bond markets were closed on Monday in observance of Labor Day.

Asian stocks rose Tuesday following strong data out of China, as European equities gave up some of the gains notched in the previous session. The

MSCI World

index of global stocks traded at an all-time high on Tuesday. 

Analysts noted that last Friday’s U.S. jobs report, which fell far short of expectations, was met with a muted reaction as traders filtered out of the office ahead of Labor Day. That, in turn, paved the way for equities in Europe and Asia to notch gains on Monday.

“Whether the warm afterglow survives the return of U.S. markets …is up for discussion,” said Jeffrey Halley, an analyst at broker Oanda. “With everybody back at their desks in the U.S. today and tomorrow, the price action in New York …may give us a more accurate representation of the data’s impact.”

That delayed reaction appeared to be modestly negative on Tuesday. More cyclically oriented stocks and sectors like industrials and energy lagged behind growth areas of the market such as technology and communication services.

Also read: Anatomy of a Miss: The August Jobs Report

On Monday, economists at Goldman Sachs revised down their growth forecast for the U.S. economy this year—from 6% to 5.7%—citing a slowdown in consumer spending amid the spread of the Delta variant of coronavirus and slimming fiscal support. But the economists see that growth coming back next year, and raised their 2022 GDP target by a similar amount.

In Asia, Tokyo’s

Nikkei 225

rose 0.9% while the Hong Kong

Hang Seng Index

climbed 0.7%. The

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