While you were sleeping: Energy stocks follow oil higher

Wall Street moved lower, while energy stocks rose with the price of oil ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday when US financial markets will be closed.

At the close of trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 64.65 points, or 0.3%, to 23,526.28. 

However, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index was positive, eking out a 0.07% gain to 6867.36, its 68th record close of the year. Earlier, it reached a fresh high of 6874.52.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index eased 0.08% to 2597.08 after briefly breaching the 2600 milestone for a second consecutive session during intraday trading.

"Global financial markets have reached the stage in a shortened holiday week where liquidity comes at an additional premium and assets swing violently on seemingly inconsequential headlines," Mark McCormick, North American head of foreign-exchange strategy at Toronto-Dominion Bank, wrote in a note, Bloomberg reported.

The Dow fell as declines in shares of Johnson & Johnson and Boeing, down 1.0% and 0.8% respectively, outweighed gains in Verizon and General Electric, up 1.9% and 1.8% respectively.

Energy stocks including Chevron and Exxon Mobil moved higher with the price of oil after an Energy Information Administration report showed US crude stockpiles declined last week.

Meanwhile, a Bloomberg survey of analysts and traders predicted that Opec would extend its deal to curb supply through the end of 2018 when the group meets next week.

Deere shares rally
Also bucking the trend, shares of Deere rallied 4.5% after the company posted better-than-expected quarterly earnings and offered a solid outlook amid strong demand for its farm machinery and construction equipment.

"We saw higher overall demand for our products with farm machinery sales in South America making especially strong gains and construction equipment sales rising sharply," Samuel Allen, Deere's chief executive officer, said in a statement.

"At the same time, the company realised continued benefits from its broad product portfolio and agile cost structure."

The company says it expects its acquisition of the Wirtgen Group, the world's leading manufacturer of road construction equipment, to be finalised next month.

"Wirtgen will establish Deere as a substantially more prominent player in global construction-equipment markets," Mr Allen said.

"The outlook comments reinforce our view of a normalisation in new agricultural machinery share of total farmer capex, with Deere's large equipment early order programme pointing to 5-10% US and Canada agricultural equipment retail demand growth despite flat total farmer capex," according to Goldman Sachs analyst Jerry Revich, Bloomberg reported.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index rose 0.3%. France's CAC 40 Index fell 0.3%, Germany's DAX Index dropped 1.2% and the UK's FTSE 100 Index rose 0.1%.

(BusinessDesk)