While you were sleeping: US Treasuries gain, Wall St mixed

US Treasuries rose, while Wall Street was mixed as investors eyed the latest on US tax reform plans and Brexit talks.

Meanwhile, the latest US jobs data offered further evidence of strength. An ADP Research Institute report showed private US employers added 190,000 workers to their payrolls in November.

Economists in separate polls by Bloomberg and Reuters predicted the government's nonfarm payrolls report, due Friday, would show an increase of 200,000 and 190,000 jobs respectively.

"The job market is red hot, with broad-based job gains across industries and company sizes," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said in a statement.

"The only soft spots are in industries being disrupted by technology, brick-and-mortar retailing being the best example. There is a mounting threat that the job market will overheat next year."

'Locking in profits'
At the close of trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 39.73 points, or 0.2%, to 24,140.91, while the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.2% to 6776.38. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was unchanged at 2629.27.

Investors are "locking in profits earlier than usual for the year and not opening any new positions," Andrew Clarke, director of trading at Mirabaud (Asia), told Bloomberg.

"Eventually, as profit taking subsides, buying for the new year will appear as people look toward 2018."

The Dow fell as gains in shares of Microsoft and Visa, up 1.4% and 1.0% respectively, failed to outweigh declines by Merck and Home Depot, down 2.5% and 1.1% respectively.

US Treasuries rose, pushing yields on the 10-year note three basis points lower to 2.330% from 2.536% on Tuesday.

Also, the Treasury yield curve flattened, with the spread between five- and 30-year US yields narrowing to 58 basis points as the market prices in more rate hikes from the Federal Reserve next year, according to Bloomberg.

Oil price drops
US oil futures declined 2.9% to $US55.96 a barrel and Brent fell 2.5% to %US61.26 after a report showed an unexpected gain in gasoline inventories.

"Gasoline inventories are also now building as demand eases back even in the face of decent export numbers," David Thompson, executive vice-president at Powerhouse, an energy-specialized commodities broker in Washington, told Reuters.

"Gasoline futures have clearly broken technical support levels and ULSD (diesel) futures are testing them."

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index eased 0.1%. Germany's DAX Index fell 0.4%, France's CAC 40 Index edged down 0.02% and the UK's FTSE 100 Index rose 0.3%.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May is facing an impasse in her efforts to negotiate a Brexit deal.

Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party thinks it will be challenging to get a deal done this week as it's demanding significant changes to a text on what the Irish border should look like after Brexit.

The Independent reported that Ms May finally spoke overnight to her DUP ally Arlene Foster, whose party have insisted they will not sign up to a proposal for Northern Ireland to remain in “regulatory alignment” with the Republic once Britain has left the EU.

However, the Irish government has warned that unless the UK goes ahead with the plan there could be no question of the Brexit negotiations moving on to the second phase – including trade talks – before the end of the year.

(BusinessDesk)