Stocks - Wall Street Opens Mixed as Violent Protests Cloud Reopening Hopes
Investing.com
Published Jun 02, 2020 09:34AM ET
By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- U.S. stock markets opened mostly higher on Tuesday, even as the wave of sometimes violent protests in response to the killing of an unarmed black man by policy weighed on hopes for a successful reopening of the U.S. economy as the Covid-19 pandemic eases.
By 10:40 AM ET (1440 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 218 points, or 0.9%, while the S&P 500 was 0.5% higher. The Nasdaq Composite, inched up by 0.1%, reversing earlier losses.
The optimism caused by the sight of dozens of states slowly relaxing restrictions on business and social life has run into some second thoughts, as a wave of protests against the killing of George Floyd has engendered looting and anti-police violence on the one side, and unrestrained abuse of peaceful protesters and media on the other.
New York City, which is still emerging from its Covid-19 lockdown, will be under curfew for a second straight evening on Tuesday after widespread looting in Lower Manhattan late on Monday. With similar scenes being replicated in cities across the country, the hoped-for return of consumers to shops, bars, movie theaters and the like is being pushed back.
Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) stock fell 1.0%, having earlier been the subject of reports saying it would ask staff to choose between unpaid leave and reduced working hours as it plots a slow path back to normality.
That the rebound in consumer demand may be elusive was also evident in China overnight, where it emerged that Apple is discounting its new iPhone models heavily to sustain sales. Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock fell 0.1%.
Elsewhere, Dick’s Sporting Goods (NYSE:DKS) stock rose 1.8% after reporting that online sales more than doubled in the three months through April, although same-store sales fell 30% due to Covid-19 related lockdowns.
In other markets, U.S. crude oil futures rose to their highest since early March on hopes for an extension of the output cuts agreed in April by OPEC and other major exporters (chiefly Russia). By 10:30, it was up 2.0% at $36.16, slightly off its intraday highs. Gold rose 0.2% to $1,753.65 a troy ounce.
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Written By: Investing.com
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