Wall Street stocks in the red as Trump loses hopes on China trade talks

• US President Trump says that he doubts that talks with China will be successful.
• The US dollar and yields keep pushing higher as investors sell riskier assets such as stocks and bonds.  

The three main US indices traded in the red on Thursday. The S&P 500 lost 0.09% to 2,720.13 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.22% to 24,713.98. The tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.21% to 7,382.47.

About one hour after the indices initially opened in the red, stocks started to spike higher on the wave optimism that trade talks between US and China were resuming on Thursday. However, during an appearance with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, US President Trump talking about the US-China negotiations said: “will that be successful? I tend to doubt it, the reason I doubt it is because China has become very spoiled. The European Union has become very spoiled. Other countries have become very spoiled because they always got 100% of whatever they wanted from the United States. But we can’t allow that to happen anymore,” and then stocks reversed course and ended the day in the red.  

Meanwhile, the US Dollar Index (DXY), which measures the greenback relative to a basket of currencies was up about 0.22% to 93.49 but failed to break above yesterday’s high while the 10-year Treasury yield benchmark reached a new multi-year high at 3.122%. The prospects of a higher US dollar backed by expectations of at least three to four rate hikes in 2018 is enticing investors to buy USD in order to take advantage of the interest rates it yields. By the same token, investors are also getting rid of riskier investments such as stocks and bonds but also gold which is considered a non-yielding asset.  

Dow Jones Industrial Average