While you were sleeping: Wall St eases from records

Wall Street languished near record highs as investors awaited the latest corporate earnings such as from Netflix.

At the close of trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average eased back 8.02 points, down 0.04%, to 21,629.72. The Nasdaq Composite Index edged ahead 0.03% to 6314.43 and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index slipped 0.01% to 2459.14.

Both the Dow and the S&P 500 closed at record highs on Friday.

US companies scheduled to report their latest earnings this week include Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Visa, Microsoft, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and General Electric.

"After new highs that we saw last week, the market deserves a rest as investors await big earnings this week," Dave Donabedian, chief investment officer of CIBC Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management, told Reuters.

"Our view is that right now the equity market is a one-legged stool that's driven by earnings and we're pretty optimistic about earnings but if that should falter, the market will falter."

In the Dow, IBM and JPMorgan Chase were recently 1.2% and 0.8% weaker respectively, offseting gains byHome Depot and Microsoft, up 0.9% and 0.6% respectively.

Meal-kit moves
Shares of Blue Apron sank 10% after reports that Amazon filed a trademark application for a meal-kit services. Shares of Amazon traded 0.6% higher.

BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, fell 3.1% after its second-quarter results fell short of analysts’ expectations.

The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note was at 2.309% compared with 2.319% on Friday.

Metals including iron ore, copper and zinc gained after China reported better-than-expected economic growth. The nation's gross domestic product expanded 6.9% in the second quarter from a year earlier, bolstered by gains in industrial output that exceeded estimates.

"It's a positive signal that China's economic growth has not only bottomed but momentum is picking up," Margaret Yang, a strategist at CMC Markets in Singapore, told Bloomberg.

Nevertheless, Shanghai’s benchmark index fell 1.4% in its biggest daily drop this year, while the Shenzhen Composite tumbled 3.6%.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index finished the session little changed from the previous close. France's CAC40 Index slid 0.1%, Germany's DAX Index fell 0.4% and the UK's FTSE 100 Index rose 0.4%.

A Eurostat report showed that the eurozone's inflation rate slipped, growing at a 1.3% pace in June, which was down from 1.4% in May and its lowest level this year.

The data bolstered the view that European Central Bank policy makers, which are set to gather on Thursday, are not expected to make any changes.

(BusinessDesk)